


Bandfarmhaus

by Anonymous



Category: Stardew Valley (Video Game)
Genre: (Lewis is the government), Bullying JojaMart, Bullying the Government, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Found Family, Gen, Labor Unions, M/M, Moving In Together, Multi, Polyamory, Polyamory Negotiations, Polyfidelity, Sebastian is aroallo, Slice of Life, Small Towns, The Farmer Doesn't Exist, Uncouth Jokes, but the burn continues after the get-together and it is slow, everyone is a bit in love with each other, they get together early so it's not a slow burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-06-17
Updated: 2020-11-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:20:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 27,748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24778300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Sebastian has two exes: Abigail, because he isn’t interested in women, and Sam, because he isn’t interested in men either.  That doesn't stop them from dragging Sebastian into an adventure of domesticity.Or: Nobody else moves into the farmhouse and overthrows JojaMart, so the band has to do it themselves.
Relationships: Abigail/Sam/Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Abigail/Sebastian (Stardew Valley), Sam/Abigail (Stardew Valley), Sam/Sebastian (Stardew Valley)
Comments: 27
Kudos: 68
Collections: Anonymous





	1. Band, Farmhouse

**Author's Note:**

> Welcome to _Bandfarmhaus!_ I couldn't get the notion of Abigail, Sam, and Sebastian building a life together out of my head, and I had to write it.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's free real estate, baby!

For Sam, everything changes when his dad returns from the army, riddled with PTSD and war stories and an awkward space between him and the family. Kent comes home craving peace and love, but one son has grown so much and the other has seemingly made no life progress altogether—yet he can’t seem to connect with either of them. Sam plays the guitar too loudly, sometimes on purpose but not maliciously, and Vincent is a good kid but he’s everywhere, all the time. Kent is overwhelmed, which means Jodi is overbearing, and Sam can’t stand being in the house longer than he needs to.

For Abigail, everything changes when Caroline bans Sam from the house for being up at stupid hours to play loud music away from Kent. _It’s affecting your father’s business negatively,_ she says, _and besides, Sam works for the enemy._ Yeah, well, it’s not Sam’s fault that nobody else in town is hiring, and it’s also not Sam’s fault that Pierre hasn’t sold a single thing since Joja Mart set up shop across town. Begrudgingly, Abigail can see how a wailing guitar could turn away customers, if they ever came by in the first place.

So Sam isn’t talking to his family, and Abigail isn’t talking to her family, and Sebastian kind of never talked to his family in the first place. Band practice is indefinitely cancelled and the space between the three of them is bleak and joyless, until Abigail comes back from one of her forest exploration days. She pounds down Sam’s door and drags him, Joja uniform and acoustic guitar and all, to a rickety one-room farmhouse.

“This place belongs to a ghost, and also, we can make all the noise we want!” she says with a series of excited bounces.

“Well, sure,” says Sam, “Old Farmer Joe is dead, but that doesn’t mean the place is haunted.” He’s not excited at all. The farmhouse is super shitty; it’s more of a shack than anything else. It doesn’t even have a bathroom.

Abigail scowls. “It’s totally haunted,” she says. “Now let’s be exhibitionists in front of Joe the ghost like the horny young adults we are.”

They do that. The sex is passionate and loud, tempered by their weeks-long dry spell and Sam’s disposition for being as noisy as possible all the time. Sam changes his mind about the farmhouse being shitty. The farmhouse is great!

A few hours later, Sam strongarms Sebastian over to the cabin by showing up to Robin’s house wearing nothing but flip-flops (his), purple briefs (Abigail’s), and a set of worn dog tags (his dad’s). Sam has a key, of course, and lets himself in to knock on Sebastian’s basement bedroom door. “Sebastian! Open the door; I’m naked.” The nudity was maybe a mistake; Sam’s skin is covered in goosebumps from the late fall chill.

 _Ribbit,_ comes a noise from the other side of the door.

“Come on, dude, that’s not remotely what a cricket sounds like.” Plus, Sebastian doesn’t have any animals, nor does he sleep during normal person hours.

The door opens to reveal Sebastian with mussed hair and an open fly. He cocks his head in a greeting.

“Your fly is open,” says Sam.

Sebastian shrugs and zips himself up. “Nothing you haven’t seen befo— shit, you _are_ naked!” he whisper-yelps. “Why are you naked?” He glances down. “Are those mine?”

“Nothing you haven’t seen before,” says Sam, winking salaciously.

“Get your nudity out of my house before anyone sees you!” Sam is suddenly insistently being shoved toward the front door, and he breaks into a sprint. Sam hops in and pushes off on his skateboard past the community centre to the farmhouse. Sebastian, predictably, swings on his motorcycle and gives chase, driving at an abysmally slow speed to protect Lewis’s carefully maintained cobblestone paths, because he can be considerate sometimes. Not all the time, though, because Sebastian yells several profanities that Sam knows are there, but pretends to not hear over the motorcycle’s engine.

(They actually run into Emily on the way, who wolf-whistles at Sam’s shorts. Dammit, he’ll be the talk of the town tomorrow.)

“This is what you wanted to show me?” says Sebastian dryly when his bike is finally parked in the nook behind the house. “You got naked to lure me out in the middle of the night for an abandoned shack?” His hair is matted down to his face with helmet sweat and he’s still wearing pajamas, but the moon—high in the cloudless night sky—bathes Sebastian in a pale glow. Sam’s breath hitches. He can never forget how beautiful Sebastian is.

“Yes!” beams Abigail, throwing open the front door (the only door) and yanking Sebastian inside. Unlike Sam and his pitiful attempt at decorum, Abigail is fully covered in Sam’s hoodie and a towel.

“Ah,” says Sebastian. “Not just an abandoned shack, but a sex shack.”

“Well, no, but also I guess sure,” says Abigail.

Sebastian sighs, forfeiting the game of flirting chicken as usual. “So what is it?” Sebastian sweeps his gaze around the single room, outfitted with Abigail’s flute and starter tambourine, Sam’s acoustic guitar, clothes strewn on top of said guitar, and Sebastian’s keytar.

Sam has not stopped grinning since he knocked at Sebastian’s door, and he’s still infectiously excited. “This, Sebastian, is the new practice space for our band!”

For Sebastian, everything changes not when Kent comes back, nor when the band relocates practice to the abandoned farmhouse, but when Abigail and Sam sat him down last month during the luau and told him they were dating. Sebastian is both Abigail and Sam’s best friend and ex-boyfriend, so the dynamic transition included joke flirting, lots of gay chicken, and lots of straight chicken, so maybe it’s just bi chicken? ...And maybe not all of the flirting was a joke. Sebastian always backs off first during flirting chicken; he loves them both but not like that. He _can’t,_ and that’s actually _why_ they’re his exes, but this new dynamic makes a part of Sebastian’s heart shudder.

When Kent comes back and the band takes a break, Sebastian breathes in the freshness of this new, quiet, open space. Sebastian likes the excuse to retreat to the privacy of his bedroom, and it’s nice to not have to deal with their oppressive presence all the time. This works, and Sebastian is able to throw himself into work and into avoiding the world, until Abigail finds the abandoned farmhouse in the woods.

And then suddenly, the three of them are in each other’s pockets again, spending most of their days in a shack with no other company but the wind, the supposed ghost of Old Farmer Joe, and the music. It’s like the brief period of separation never happened, and Sebastian is right back where he started.

—

Days turn into weeks, and the cabin starts filling up. Nearly all of Sam’s instruments are there, as well as Abigail’s drum kit and Sebastian’s keyboard and a shitty portable recording station. Abigail gets seriously good at the flute and picks up other folk woodwinds, such as the Jew’s harp and the milk jug and DIY bagpipes. Sebastian uses mixing for the band as an excuse to plug in headphones and tune out the world. Sam gets familiar with writing each bandmate’s style preference into the music. Within a month of having a dedicated jamming and production space, they have enough music for two albums.

Non-music personal effects start to litter the place too. Parts of the drywall are peeling, so Abigail grabs some of Pierre’s old wallpaper swatches and wheat pastes them to the wall. The sleeping bags become a permanent fixture, as does a washboard and some staple clothing items. Sam brings in a jar of Joja Cola-flavoured marshmallows for roasting. They strip the bed of the miserably threadbare mattress, and use it to house Solarian Chronicles maps.

“I’m sleeping over with Abigail,” says Sam when Jodi asks. “But we’re not, you know, doing bad stuff.” Jodi thinks Abigail is a good kid and a way better influence on him than Sebastian.

“I’m sleeping over with Sebastian,” says Abigail when Pierre asks where she goes. Caroline thinks Sebastian is a way better influence on her than Sam.

“I’m going to the old farmhouse,” says Sebastian when Demetrius asks, because there’s nothing unreasonable about what he’s doing. But mostly, Demetrius doesn’t ask because even though Sebastian goes to the farmhouse twice a week for practice and once more for drinks, he doesn’t make it a habit to sleep over like Sam and Abigail do.

They book a week of back-to-back performances in the first week of winter, and they use the advance to commission Maru to build them a portable generator for the cabin, which barely has running water, let alone heat or electricity. Between the three of them, Abigail is the only one who isn’t employed, so she spends a lot of time chopping wood. Aside from the fire, she also uses the wood to craft a thousand chests to store their things in.

“You know,” says Maru, imperceptibly shivering from either the cold or the nerves of actually talking to her elusive stepbrother, “the farmhouse is rickety, but not completely disconnected. You could probably get Mom to fix the walls and hook up some real electricity and this could be a decent, I don’t know, bro cave.”

“Yeah, a great bro cave where I cover my ears with a pillow while the two lovebirds go at it,” says Sebastian flatly.

Maru ducks her suddenly enflamed face down and goes back to work.

Sam glares at Sebastian. “You know, it wouldn’t be so bad to fix this place up,” he muses. He _keeps_ musing about it, sketching out furnishing plans and floor plans and payment plans over the next two weeks. He muses about it so hard that he trips on a bucket of water at work, careening Morris, Shane, _and_ the front desk lady into a wall. Joja Mart closes for a month because everyone else is too injured and Sam, the only one unscathed, clearly can’t be trusted to run the store by himself.

(Pierre gets lots of business that month, which makes Morris super mad.)

Being unemployed means Sam is home more often again, and he and Kent drive each other up the walls, which in turn makes Jodi and Vincent distraught. Sam finally throws his arms up and moves out into the farmhouse. Abigail officially moves in too, and the two have a housewarming party on the last day of winter. Their families squeeze on their new bed and eat some _awful_ food made over a campfire from Joja produce, but for the first time since Kent came back, everyone is getting along.

After dinner, Caroline pulls Abigail aside. “Honey, I was wrong about Sam being a bad influence,” she says. “He’s clearly a goal-oriented young man, taking steps to turn this shitstain of a shack into a cozy little house like this. You two will be great farmers.”

“That’s... really sweet, Mom.” Abigail smiles. “Who said anything about us being farmers, though?”

Caroline’s brows furrow. “Huh, I guess I’m not sure where that came from. Of course you don’t have to be a farmer if you don’t want to.”

Abigail hugs her mother. “I’m glad you changed your mind about Sam. I love you.”

Caroline hugs back. “Be good to yourself and to each other, and don’t have any threesomes with Sebastian.”

“Mom!” screeches Abigail. “First, that’s not your business; and second, Sam and I will have as many threesomes we want, whether that number is zero or a thousand!” (Sam’s entire family goes red inside the house.)

Caroline giggles. “I’m just messing with you, dear. I love you too.” Abigail giggles too, but underneath the good humour, she thinks she sees a hint of wistfulness in her mother’s face.

Sam and Abigail’s families leave, and not half an hour later, Sebastian shows up with a sleeping bag and a six-pack of beer. They drink late into the night, laughing over memories and the bright outlook of the future.

—

The next morning, Sam wakes up with Abigail’s face mashed into his shoulder and Sebastian’s presence on the floor. He groans, rolling over in the too-small bed and abruptly launches both himself and Abigail on the floor. They land right on top of not only Sebastian, but a small mountain of parsnip seed packs piled on Sebastian’s face. They’re each decorated with a little apple mascot on the back.

“Huh,” he says amidst Sebastian’s complaining about being woken too early, “Abigail, did your dad leave us a housewarming gift?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ficrec of the chapter: [Stardon't Valley](https://archiveofourown.org/works/9696083) by _Obsequious_Numina,_ from which I shamelessly hijacked the observation that the farmhouse has no bathroom.


	2. The JojaMart Union

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sam spearheads some community action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> My second playthrough of Stardew Valley was a Joja run so I could get a Joja Cola machine, marry Sam, and feed Sam Joja Cola every day like a heathen.

Sam and Abigail do end up planting the parsnip seeds, as well as a plethora of other seeds, but peaceful farmhouse bliss isn’t raking in insane profits or anything. It doesn’t help that Abigail keeps leaving produce at the community centre for free for some magical talking apples that nobody else has seen. So, when JojaMart reopens, Sam goes back to work because damned if he’s going to fuck up the careful peace he’s finally cultivated with Kent by moving back home.

There’s a grand reopening that nobody from town attends, and then JojaMart is back in business as usual. _Just another manic Monday,_ hums Sam under his breath.

“Sorry about your face,” says Sam to Shane after the ribbon cutting. Shane is mostly recovered and back to shelf stacking duty, although he is a little slower than he was previously.

Shane grunts grumpily.

“Sorry about your leg,” says Sam to Morris, who’s sitting behind the service desk in a wheelchair.

“You’re on thin ice, Samuel,” says Morris.

“Sorry about your, uh—“ Sam gestures at the cashier’s whole body, which is still swollen and covered in a mottling of purple, although the broken bones have been healed. (Multiple bones were protruding from their skin when Sam crashed into them; it was super gross.) “Um, are you okay to be back at work? You still look super fucked up.”

The cashier fixes Sam with a look that screams _no shit,_ even though none of their face muscles move. Sam straight up thought they were a work robot until he saw them cry while splinting as many of their limbs as they could by themself after the accident.

“I mean, ah, your body is important, you know?” says Sam, rubbing the back of his head. “There’s no shame in taking time off, or actually seeing Doctor Harvey instead of being your own physical therapist. Commuting from the city to JojaMart every day can’t be easy in your condition either,” he rambles in a fit of guilt.

“JojaMart doesn’t provide hazard pay,” says the cashier. “Also, I live upstairs.”

“Holy shit,” says Sam, not sure which statement to be more upset at.

“If it makes you two feel better,” says Morris, “I also didn’t receive hazard pay. Although, I get paid much more handsomely than our cashier here, so perhaps that makes up for it.”

“Not helping,” says Sam.

 _“Thin ice, Samuel,”_ says Morris.

“My bad,” says Sam. “But seriously, that’s not cool of the company to treat you like that either. Aren’t they supposed to, like, value middle management as part of the Joja family or some bullshit like that?”

“Joja Corporation has historically had a good repertoire with the union,” says Morris, “but Joja now takes care of its own without any union oversight.”

“...Can _we_ form a union?” says Sam.

“Talk of unionising will get you sacked faster than a fresh potato,” says Morris. “They’ll just send someone in from the city.”

“Actually,” drawls the cashier, “Pelican Town bylaw says that fifty percent of employees in any chain store operating here must be Pelican Town residents.”

“That’s absurd! Besides, even if you get the alcoholic to help you, our cashier here lives upstairs and would never oppose corporate interest,” says Morris.

“It’s true,” agrees the cashier. “Joja Corporation owns me, so I live and breathe Joja.”

“That’s okay,” says Sam. “ _My_ permanent address recently changed to just outside of city limits, so I’m no longer a Pelican Town resident. If Shane strikes and I don’t, then you’re short one Pelican Town employee.”

Morris’s jaw hangs slack at his uneventful grand opening day becoming even _less_ lucrative.

“Shane!” calls Sam. “You’re going on strike!”

Shane grunts again, but far less grumpily this time.

—

“Welcome to JojaMart,” says Sam to Jodi the next day. “You can’t use my employee discount anymore, and neither can anyone else in town that’s currently using it. Nothing personal; it’s just part of the strike action.”

“How is it a strike action if the store is still operating and still has customers?” asks Jodi.

“Well, are you still going to shop here now that you don’t have my employee discount making everything dirt cheap?” says Sam. “Would you like me to reshelve your items for you?”

Jodi nods dumbly, and walks out of the store. Shane waves at her outside with the hand not holding the picket sign.

—

The day after that, Sebastian is upturning the dirt along the river (more on that later), moving east all the way until he is tilling at Morris’s feet, which are attached to the rest of Morris, who is quietly crying in the dirt over Shane picket sign. The other JojaMart employees are playing Solarion Chronicles over the same picket sign.

“What the fuck?” says Sebastian.

“We have no customers,” whimpers Morris. “How do my employees have so much bargaining power? There aren’t enough employees to count as a real union! _It’s not a strike if it’s one person!”_

The cashier starts to explain the Pelican Town bylaws to Morris, who tearily tells them to shut up.

“There’s no work to be done, so we’re passing time,” says Sam. There’s a confident gleam in his eyes.

“So you’re playing a tabletop game outdoors, in the dirt?” says Sebastian.

“We’re teaching Morris Solarion Chronicles, and it’s a nice day,” says Sam cheerfully, explaining absolutely nothing.

Morris sniffles. “I need to be p-productive!”

“There there,” says Sam, handing Morris a pair of dice. Morris rolls them shakily.

Sebastian watches them flip cards and roll dice for a few rounds. Everyone in town knows that Morris is a shithead, and that Shane and the cashier are antisocial. Sam constantly complains about having no workplace culture, and Sebastian can’t relate because he wishes that all his coworkers would stop inviting him to virtual happy hours. But Sam is clearly in his element here, managing to pull life out of Morris’s fake-ass personality and the cashier’s permanent deadpan. Being social looks good on Sam.

Before he can change his mind, Sebastian swoops in and plants a kiss on Sam’s cheek, which promptly turns red. “Good luck with seizing the means of production,” he says.

—

_Dear JojaMart Human Resources,_

_If you cannot get the local employee ratio of the Pelican Town JojaMart back up to 50% by the end of the week, I will be forced to shut down the store. This is a courtesy warning._

_Additionally, the citizens of Pelican Town are thoroughly miffed over being unable to use the shared employee discount. It is my understanding that they have stopped shopping at JojaMart as a result._

_Mayor Lewis_

—

“Lewis is going to lose the legal battle with human resources,” says Shane, walking up to the pool table with a pint. “I’m coming back to work.”

“Shane, you can’t give up now!” says Sam. “We’re so close; JojaMart only has a few days to meet our demands or Lewis will shut the store down.”

“Corporate will choose to shut the store down!” says Shane. “I need this job. I actually contribute to taking care of the seven-year-old in my life, instead of ditching everyone for an abandoned farmhouse.”

(“He lives in an _un_ abandoned farmhouse,” whispers Abigail to Sebastian, who gives her a thumbs up.)

Sam narrows his eyes. “Oh, so you want to roll over and go to work for a company who failed to take care of all of the employees who were injured on the job? If this strike action fails, it’s because you were too much of a wimp to stand up for anything important.”

“We were all injured because of _you!”_ yells Shane. “You’re pushing this hazard pay thing so hard because _you_ feel bad, while the rest of us have actual priorities and care about staying employed!”

“You’re going to be stocking shelves for the rest of your miserable life,” spits Sam.

“Whatever,” says Shane. “I thought it would be polite to give you a heads up, but you’re an asshole, so obviously not.”

—

It’s a gloomy rainy Saturday, and Sam and Shane arrive for Shane’s shift at the same time.

“I see—never mind,” sighs Sam. “Look, I was a dick last night. I maintain that I’m _right,_ but you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place and I get that.”

Shane gives Sam the middle finger.

“Ah, you’re both here!” says Morris, throwing open the JojaMart doors. He’s out of the wheelchair today, and on crutches instead.

“JojaMart Corporation and Mayor Lewis got back to us with good news! JojaMart has not only approved a better benefits package with your requested hazard pay, but they’ve also graciously provided the cashier, Shane, and myself with back pay for our missed work. The prices on our product have also been lowered, so the townspeople can comfortably shop here again. _And_ my legs are healing splendidly, so today is a good day.”

“Wow,” says Shane, dumbfounded.

“I look forward to very productive days from this hardworking team moving forward,” says Morris. “Except for you!” Morris whirls on Sam, his cheery beam turning into a menacing glare. “For insubordination, playing board games on the clock, and inciting insurgence among my employees; you are so incredibly fired!”

—

“And that’s how they get you, Abby!” rants Sam. “They lower prices for now until they drive your dad out of business. Once they’re the only business in town, they’ll strongarm Lewis into getting rid of the bylaws, bring in their own employees, and raise prices and _drain the life out of Pelican Town.”_

“That’s awful,” says Sebastian, horrified.

“Abby, Seb, we’re going to be the best damn farmers and grow the best damn produce. We’re going to make JojaMart shut the fuck down. Morris won’t know what hit him.”

“Oh, honey,” says Abigail, plopping a half-dozen parsnips and some other spring crops into an apple-shaped basket. “what do you think I’ve been doing for the past few weeks?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic rec of the chapter: [Pizza Sluts](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7855015) by _AndeliaMaddock_ (NSFW), which totally got me on the Shane-and-Sam-fuck-with-Morris train.
> 
> Happy Sunday! Hope you're enjoying the fic. :)


	3. Purple Underwear (The Hoeing Chapter)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A mysterious pair of purple boxers sends the band into a tizzy.

_Sam,_

_I don’t know what your purple underwear was doing in my house, and I don’t think I want to. Gross._

_Fuck off forever,_ _  
__Shane_

_[Attached: a pair of purple shorts, covered with polka dots.]_

—

“I have something for you!” exclaims Abigail one afternoon, barging into Sebastian’s room and shoving a tiny solid droplet in his face.

“I really like this!” Sebastian’s face lights up. Abigail grins; it’s good to see Sebastian smiling.

“Should I put it with the others?” asks Abigail. Sebastian nods, and Abigail plops the frozen tear in an oversized dice pouch filled to the brim with other frozen tears.

“Want a snack?” offers Sebastian, cracking open a chocolate box filled with minerals that Abigail has been bringing him almost daily. Normally, she wouldn’t be bringing anyone a gift more than twice a week, but this is Sebastian. If Abigail had to rank her closeness with other people, Sebs would be right up there with Sam at ten out of ten hearts.

“Hey, how’d you know I was hungry?” says Abigail, and picks out a quartz to chomp into. “What?” she says at Sebastian’s flinch. “I’m a certified geologist. We lick rocks.” Abigail’s strong constitution has been plenty helpful in her online college courses.

“Not that I don’t love getting a rock every day,” says Sebastian, “but don’t you have a farm to run. Profit to make?”

“Oh, Sebastian, I wouldn’t skip out on rocking your world with my rocks for the world,” says Abigail, giggling as Sebastian’s cheeks tint pink. “Besides, the farm is pretty passive and I can’t let it get in the way of my true passion: adventuring.” It’s true—Sam has been putting more time than ever before into music, and Abigail has been exploring the local mine. Abigail has a whole collection of valiantly excavated cave goodies, and only a small percentage of it is gifts for Sebastian.

“This stuff looks pretty valuable, though. I know I live on the mountain so I’m more convenient than the blacksmith, but I think Clint would pay good money for this.”

Abigail shrugs. “If you’re worried about stuff piling up in your room, I think Gunther at the museum would be happy to take stuff off your hands. It’ll certainly make the junimos happy.” 

“Hmm,” says Sebastian, “having a local natural history collection at the museum _would_ be pretty cool.”

A few days later, Abigail notices a missing hoe from the farmhouse. Incidentally, half the town is also randomly tilled ground, which Abigail trips over whenever she’s running errands in town. This doesn’t really become a problem though, because somehow, the dirt piles seem to go away every morning.

—

“Loot trade,” sings Abigail, dumping a pile of minerals on top of the cabin table where Sebastian and Sam are editing some recent recordings. The music table is also their gaming table, and the bookkeeping table, and the table for displaying their one decorative cup.

“We’re working,” protests Sam.

 _“I’m_ working,” corrects Sebastian. “You’re micromanaging me because you’re bored.”

Sam pouts. Abigail pats his head and pecks his cheek.

“Well, you could both use a break from band stuff,” says Abigail. “Sebs, I made a list of things that the Junimos requested! Have you dug any of these things up?”

Sebastian dumps his pack on the table as well, unveiling a series of trinkets, some forageables, and the interior floor plan of the museum. _(“Hey!”_ whines Sam.) Rummaging through the pile of stuff, Abigail picks out a spice berry, a clam, and a cave carrot. She also examines a heavy tome labelled _The Dwarvish Translation Guide,_ which looks cool as hell. Sebastian selects some gems and geodes, carefully placing them into his backpack and marking a colour-coded spreadsheet on his laptop. After a pensive look, he grabs Abigail’s copy of _Local Detective Work for Dummies._

“Hey, what’s this?” says Abigail, fishing out some fabric as she cleans up the pile of trinkets. It’s a pair of purple shorts with a note stapled to them. “Erm, Sam, why is Shane sending you underwear?

Sam groans. “Emily saw me in purple underwear and now I can’t go into town without somebody teasing me about it. I’m not sure why Shane is sending me random underwear, but he already hates me, so he can’t be happy thinking I put my underwear in his house,” says Sam.

“Well, maybe not,” says Abigail. “He _is_ sending them back to you instead of throwing them out.”

Sam buries his face into his arms. “Man, just because I got caught wearing purple underwear in public _once_ doesn’t mean that _all_ the purple underwear is mine.”

“It’s your own fault that you’re being kinkshamed by the whole town,” says Abigail. (Behind them, the door clicks shut.)

“For Yoba’s sake!” yells Sam. “The underwear is comfortable, _not_ kinky. It’s old and rumpled and, okay, I get why Emily might think wearing me wearing women's underwear—”

“Hold up,” interrupts Abigail. “That is _not_ my underwear; that’s _your_ underwear that I steal sometimes because they’re comfortable. Nor is it women's underwear; it has a dick pouch and everything.”

Sam frowns. “No, that’s definitely girl-cut underwear. The band used to be like three sizes too small; I just like them because they’re somehow the perfect cup size. And they’re purple! That’s a women’s underwear colour!”

“The colour thing is a ridiculous claim and you know it!” exclaims Abigail. “These purple boxers are clearly men’s underwear!”

“Sebastian, you’re a neutral party,” says Sam. “What do you think?”

Sebastian is nowhere to be seen. “He’s gone,” says Abigail. “I guess he went off to deliver things to the museum.”

—

“...Not that I don’t love a good stakeout, but why are we hiding in the bushes at midnight?” whispers Abigail.

“I don’t know,” grumbles Sebastian. “Why did you _follow me?”_

“So we can ask you what you think about the underwear,” says Abigail. She’s crouched in a bush on the west side of the town river, just south of Lewis’s house. It’s the middle of a moonless, cloudy night, but they can see just fine because Abigail installed torches every ten metres apart on every pathway during one frustrating night home from the mines. Sam and Sebastian are in two nearby separate bushes.

“Shane mailed Sam this underwear...” continues Abigail, waving the purple boxers over her head, launching into an explanation, and finishing with “...so who do _you_ think these purple boxers belong to?”

“Seriously?” whispers Sebastian, sounding either indigant or embarrassed; Abigail isn’t sure which.

“And the briefs,” says Sam. “We’re trying to figure out which one of us owns the briefs.”

“Well, _I’m_ trying to figure out who’s unhoeing the ground every morning,” says Sebastian, “so if you guys could be quiet—”

“Well, they’re obviously Abby’s, because Abby likes purple things and also they’re in a slim cut!” says Sam.

“Shhh,” says Sebastian, focusing on... something in the distance, maybe?

“They’re literally men’s underwear!” says Abigail.

“Yeah, men’s underwear the same size as your waist!” says Sam.

 _“Holy shit shut up,”_ says Sebastian vehemently.

A hand plucks the boxers out of Abigail’s still raised hand. “Aha, there they are! I guess you didn’t leave them in my room after all.”

Abigail pokes her head out of the bush, horrified. “Mayor Lewis? Marnie?” she exclaims.

Lewis immediately covers his face with the underwear. “You’re seeing things,” he says. “I’m not fraternising with Marnie. Nope.”

Sam pokes his head out of his bush too. “You and Marnie? Really?”

Lewis winces. “Please don’t tell anybody! I don’t want anyone to think less of my professionalism.”

Abigail frowns. “You’re an adult dating another adult. That’s not even, like, remotely scandalous. I eat rocks.”

“She does,” confirms Sebastian, peeking out of his bush.

“Seriously?” says Lewis. “Is the whole town here?” Marnie pats his arm, and Lewis jumps. “Oh, and you’re here, of course, my dear Marnie.” Lewis beams at her.

“We totally respect your need for privacy,” says Sam smoothly, standing up and brushing leaves off his hoodie. “For a price, of course.”

“Now, Sam,” says Marnie, “you don’t want to start a relationship of extortion in a town where you were running around in women’s underwear. That’s just bad optics.”

“I have no shame,” declares Sam indignantly, but Abigail isn’t looking at him. She’s looking at Sebastian, who’s ducked back into his bush.

Abigail sighs. “Look, we all do weird things. I eat rocks. Sebstian, for some reason, _loves_ tilling the sidewalk. Sam has a strange history with purple underwear, and apparently, so does Lewis. We can forget it. Let’s just... never bring up any mentions of the purple underwear again.”

Lewis puffs his chest. “That’s a quality proposal, Abigail! Agreed.”

“Aw, come on!” says Sam. “I wasn’t going to extort them for anything bad; I just want JojaMart out of Pelican Town for everyone’s benefit.”

—

“...It’s your underwear, isn’t it?” Abigail asks Sebastian as the trio walks back toward the farm along the torchlit river path.

Sebastian ducks his head down. “...Yeah.” Abigail preens a little at Sebastian’s confirmation of her deduction.

“Ohhh,” says Sam, drawing out the _o_ sound. He slings one arm behind Sebastian, measuring the width of his waist. “That’s why they’re girl-cut.”

“They’re not girl-cut, you asshole; they’re just _smaller._ I _have_ women's underwear, and they're built differently,” says Sebastian.

“Aw Sebastian, sorry I stole your underwear and then let Sam steal them from me,” says Abigail, hugging him from the other side and grabbing Sam’s hand behind Sebastian’s back. “You can have them back, even though they’re incredibly comfy.”

“Yeah, totally,” agrees Sam, squeezing Abigail’s hand.

“...No, it’s okay,” says Sebastian, ducking out of the dual hug. “If they fit Sam, they don’t fit me, and clearly he likes them enough to wear them in public and fight over them.”

Abigail giggles as Sam stars a slapfight with Sebastian. Behind them, the bushes rustle and an industrial deadlock clicks into place, but Abigail doesn’t pay it any mind. After all, lots of people in Pelican Town have weird vices.

—

_Dear Sam and Abigail,_

_I’m afraid I cannot do more about JojaMart. You’ll simply have to drive them out of business, which I am sure is possible with the quality crops your farm is growing!_

_Speaking of crops, the governor will be coming to town soon for the annual luau next week! Be sure to bring an excellent contribution. He might also be able to help you with your corporate grievance._

_Mayor Lewis_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fic rec of the chapter: [The Pelican Gang](https://archiveofourown.org/series/752256) by _artificialheart,_ which is a super fun series that is also about Abigail and Sam and Sebastian!
> 
> This chapter was really fun to write, but I'm even more excited about the upcoming luau chapter, which is a little longer and gets a little more serious. I'm trying to figure out a balance between the shenanigans and actually growing these characters, because both of those things are important to me. :)


	4. Samuel Melonhands

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [When no one was looking,](https://media.comicbook.com/2018/09/lex-luthor-40-cakes-1131948.jpeg) Sam brought forty melons to the luau. He brought 40 melons. That's as many as four tens. And that's terrible.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shoves my life insecurities into fic*

The front lawn of 24 Mountain Road is covered in flowers, surrounded by barricade tape and a big sign that says _PLEASE DO NOT HOE THE GROUND._ Robin’s whole front yard is now tilled ground, which apparently works out for Demetrius. Underneath the text is a scribbled angry face in deep indigo paint, and around the face is a series of orange hearts. Maru has sketched out the front garden’s walkable paths on the sign. Finally, in Demetrius’s handwriting is another, smaller piece of text that exudes exasperation: _Please do not vandalise the sign—or at least choose colours that match the flowers._

Naturally, both Abigail and Sam pull out a pair of pens to doodle on the sign. The glitter ink (magenta and blue, respectively) sparkles in the early morning sun.

“Do you two get joy out of disobeying signage?” chuckles Demetrius, walking up to the garden with Maru in tow.

They both jump. “Sorry Demetrius,” says Abigail sheepishly. “It’s in our nature as rebellious young adults.”

From behind Demetrius, Maru giggles.

A few minutes later, Demetrius and Maru have whisked Abigail away to talk about... caves, or fruit bats, or something. Sam supposes he’ll have to buy the house upgrade they want by himself, then. He swings open the front door, excitedly anticipating the discussion, and then rolls his eyes when he sees that Robin is not at her counter. Again.

“Dang,” says Sam. “Robin, the shop’s closed? I _know_ it’s not Tuesday.”

“It’s luau day!” says Robin cheerfully, poking her head out from the kitchen and bringing with him the mouthwatering scent of spaghetti sauce. “Sebastian hasn’t come up for breakfast yet, but you’re welcome to have some spaghetti while you wait.”

Sam’s face pales, which he’s sure looks quite silly because he’s simultaneously stuffing himself with spaghetti. “Shit,” he says. “That’s today? I’ve got to go. I guess I’ll come back tomorrow to talk maybe about installing another bedroom. We might be needing more space pretty soon." Sam grins, thinking about the potentiality of having the whole band in the same house.

Robin’s eyes light up. “Oh my Yoba, that’s great news! I’m so happy for you and Abigail!”

“...Uh, okay?” says Sam. A house upgrade _is_ a thing to be celebrated, probably. “Thanks for the spaghetti; sorry to eat and run. I have to go; see you later!” Sam sprints off in a cloud of dust.

—

“Abby! Emergency farm management meeting!” hollers Sam at the top of his lungs, speed-rolling down the mountain pathway on his skateboard.

“Sam! The luau is _today!”_ yells Abigail, running in from the town pathway, kicking up some dust behind her. Some of it probably lands inside some preserve jars, haphazardly placed in a messy row behind her.

“I’m here too,” waves Sebastian absentmindedly from a shaded area of the farm, furiously typing on his laptop. He picks up a half-eaten raw parsnip from his plate, bites into it like an apple, and makes a face at the flavour. (He wasn’t sleeping in like Robin had thought. Or, well, maybe he was, but he was doing so at the farm.)

“I can’t believe we forgot!” says Sam. “What’s our food inventory like?”

Abigail starts harvesting items from the field. “Looks like the speed-gro melons came in,” she says, and plucks a pair of melons and holds them to her chest, prompting a giggle from Sebastian.

“Okay, great,” says Sam, completely ignoring Abigail’s melon-boob gag. “Soup tasting starts at three o’clock, but we need to get there before noon if we want to distribute the good produce before everyone contributes to the soup.”

“What? Why?” says Sebastian, peering up through his fringe from his hunched over position.

“Keep up, Sebs,” says Abigail. “Sam’s trying to bribe the governor into shutting down JojaMart. Plus, it’s our first luau as farmers!”

“We’ll need some big containers to cart all these ginormous melons over to the beach,” declares Sam. He starts loading some baskets with the melons. “Aw,” he groans. “We’re four melons short of having a gold star melon for every villager.”

“Gus always brings something great,” offers Abigail, thinking. “Marnie and Willy also have good taste in fish...”

“Okay,” says Sam, thinking. “That leaves one person without a melon. Maybe the luau soup will still be good with one okay out of three dozen great ingredients.”

“I’m actually not going.” Sebastian stands from his spot in the shade to help load the baskets on a wheeled trolley. “The deadline for this big project I’m working on is really soon,” he says sullenly.

Abigail looks downtrodden. “Are you sure? Maybe you can drop by later, or something. We’ll miss you there.”

“No, this is great!” cheers Sam. “Now we have the perfect number of melons! Thanks for taking one for the team, Sebs,” he says, smiling. “Abby, let’s go!” The trolley wheels clunk as the two farmers manoeuvre it past the plots of tilled land toward the south end of the farm.

“...Later,” says Sebastian, already engrossed in his work again.

—

The midday sun pierces exuberantly through the cloudless sky on the beach and its visitors. When Sam and Abigail arrive, the luau soup thankfully still smells like the base spices that Gus seasons the pot with every year. The scent of sunblock also permeates through the air, as do the sounds of Jas and Vincent struggling as Kent and Marnie try to get said sunblock on them. Everyone is chittering animatedly about something exciting, except for Lewis, who is probably chatting about boring government business with the governor.

“Abby, do you want to take the west half of the beach? I’ll do the east half,” says Sam. Abigail nods, and the two rush off in a frenzy to talk to everyone.

Sam didn’t think it would take a long time to distribute melons to the partygoers, but for some reason, everyone wants to stop and talk to him! Elliott and Leah invite him to their stitch-n-bitch session, where they gossip and make knit garments. The hermit who hangs out near Sebastian’s house is slightly less aloof than usual, making some comment about the miracle of life. Maru and Harvey remind Sam about booking a doctor’s appointment, even though his annual appointment isn’t for another month. And his parents, well—

“Mom! Dad! In-laws!” says Sam. Jodi, Kent, Caroline, and Pierre’s spines go ramrod from their relaxed position around the snack table as soon as Sam walks up to them. “Good to see you! I’d love to catch up, but there’s no time. I need a favour.” For five consecutive minutes, Sam rambles about his plan to bribe the governor with the best luau soup made from fresh, high-quality melons.

Jodi glares. “The nerve of you, Sam! Not having time to catch up with your family.”

“I can’t believe we had to find out the big news from Robin!” says Pierre.

Sam stares confusedly. “Big news—you mean the house upgrade?”

“I know I didn’t always have a presence in your life, Sam, but is our relationship so distant that you would keep this a secret? That, or you didn’t think it was important to tell me,” sighs Kent. “I’m not sure which it is, but I’m disappointed either way.”

“Oookay,” says Sam, backing away. “You’re all reacting very strongly to Abigail and my asking for Robin’s advice about a potential house upgrade, and we can revisit this after the luau. Can you do the melon thing?”

Caroline hmphs. “Fine, but we’re very unhappy with the two of you!”

Everyone else he goes to is happy to replace their soup ingredient with melon, and is thankfully much more cheerful than his family. Even the cashier at JojaMart, who briefly drops by on crutches during their lunch break, makes half-hearted friendly small talk with Sam. He doesn’t have an extra melon for them, so he cuts them half of his own melon instead so they can participate in the luau.

“What just happened?” whispers Abigail when they regroup two hours after their arrival at the beach. “Pam offered me condolences and Demetrius just said, and I quote, _‘I wish you and Sam the sincerest of congratulations.’”_

“Our parents just got pissed that Robin knew about the upgrade before they did, even though Robin will be building the house!” says Sam.

“I just want to solve this mystery now,” says Abigail forlornly. “But I guess we should tell Lewis that the soup is ready.”

—

“Well, folks, it’s time once again for the potluck ceremony, and I trust you’ve all put in high-quality ingredients,” announces Lewis. “That said, this year’s potluck is extra special! We are welcoming a new member into the citizenship of Pelican Town, which is something we haven’t done in eight years!” 

“What is he talking about?” whispers Abigail.

“Shit,” says Sam, remembering Vincent’s year of birth and going pale.

“Governor,” says Lewis, “would you do the honour of tasting this year’s luau soup in tribute to Sam and Abigail’s incoming baby?”

There’s a muffled clatter, and over Lewis’s shoulder, Sam and half the rest of the town sees Sebastian with a freshly shattered laptop at his feet, a regular-quality melon in his hand, and a stricken expression on his face.

—

Sam and Abigail quickly excuse themselves to Elliott’s cabin, pulling Sebastian in with them. (During his earlier conversation with Elliott and Leah, Sam felt like he’d accumulated enough friendship points with Elliott to commandeer his cabin like this.)

“I can’t believe... well, any of this!” Sebastian’s not crying, not yet, but his face has been crumpled for the past few minutes like he’s ready to burst. “When were you going to tell me?” Abigail reaches out a comforting hand toward him, and he knocks it away angrily. “Don’t do that! I knew this luau was important to you guys, so I thought I’d bring work to the beach. Imagine my surprise when I showed up to the baby shower that I wasn’t invited to!”

Sam and Abigail share a look with each other. “Sebastian...” says Sam quietly. “There’s no baby. Abby’s not pregnant, and there’s no way you would be the last to find out if she were.”

“We’re definitely not ready to be parents,” agrees Abigail. “There hasn’t even been a tiny, offhanded mention of kids. Why did you think we wouldn’t tell you about a baby?”

Sebastian slumps, all the energy draining out of him. “I knew you guys were building a life without me, which is fine, I guess,” Sebastian says dumbly. “I just... I like my space, but you’re my only friends in this town, and I thought this was one more thing you two were doing together without me.”

Sam sighs. “I guess this is what happens when we let our friendship float in flirting limbo for months,” he says, finally acknowledging the uncomfortable and alluring hole in their relationship. “Dude, I care about you so much. You’re our best friend, and you’ll always be a priority both on the farm and in my life.”

“We both love you,” agrees Abigail, with tears in her eyes. “Even after you broke up with me and Sam _separately,_ you are very dear to my heart. I want you in my life as much as you can be.”

The dam bursts, and Sebastian breaks out into quiet sobs. “I can’t believe I was jealous of a baby that doesn’t exist,” says Sebastian. He wipes his eyes. “Okay. I guess it’s my turn.” He takes a breath. “So I’ll always be kind of independent, and I can’t see myself ever being in love with you like you are with each other. But you two matter a lot to me, and I want to be in your life for as long as you’ll have me.”

Abigail smiles through her tears. “Okay. Good,” she says. “Move in with us.”

“What?” says Sebastian.

“We weren’t planning a baby, or having an unplanned baby,” says Sam firmly, taking one of Sebastian and Abigail’s hands in each of his hands. “We just went to ask Robin about maybe getting a house upgrade, and if we were able to afford her estimate, then we would ask you to move in with us.”

“You spend all your time at the farm anyway,” says Abigail. “All your shit is with us except your bed and computer. Also, we need you to do all our bookkeeping because you’re the only one of us who knows how to do math.”

Sebastian is silent, and the room is tense. “...I don’t know,” he says, after a moment. “It’s a lot, and it’s so soon.” He blows a tuft of hair out of his face.

“I get it,” nods Sam. “The offer is still on the table, though.”

“Also, as your bookkeeper,” adds Sebastian, “I know that you definitely can’t afford the bedroom upgrade, especially since you just blew most of your midsummer harvest today. You can _maybe_ get a kitchen.”

Abigail puts a finger to her chin, thinking. “What if we built you a cabin? It’ll give you the space you need while keeping you close, and Lewis could subsidise it through the Stardew Valley Agricultural Fund.”

Sam swears he can see Sebastian mentally flip through a spreadsheet. “Then... yes!” he says. He cracks a wry smile. “It’s always been a matter of when, and not if, with you two.”

Abigail beams, and her smile is beautiful. “Good!” she says, grabbing the two men in a strong hug.

“As long as we also build a kitchen,” wheezes Sebastian through the hug. “I’m no foodie, but you’ve eaten nothing but raw vegetables for weeks, and I’m not going on a raw vegan diet again. Dem already made my family try that, and it did not work out well.”

“Consider it done,” says Sam, and his smile is so wide that his cheeks hurt. “Now let’s go have some real, cooked food at the Luau.”

—

Sam and Abigail announce that no, they aren’t pregnant; they’re just upgrading their cabin for non-baby-related reasons. The town is apologetic and a little disappointed, but the three of them have an infectious happiness that quickly re-enlivens the party. Lewis hands everyone bowls of the luau soup, and Sam almost spits out his first sip.

“This is _awful!”_ he manages through the sickeningly sweet sting on his tongue. “But we gave everyone gold-star ingredients!”

“You gave everyone except for Marnie, Willy, and me a melon,” says Gus. “We’re basically drinking fishy melon juice here.”

“Oh noooo,” wails Sam. “This is worse than the time I put anchovies in the soup!”

“I’m sure one of us would have told you,” says Marnie, “but you explained your plan to everyone _except_ the three exceptional cooks in this town!”

“If you’d told me about this plan beforehand,” says Willy, “I wouldn’t have brought fish!”

“Yeah, that makes sense." Sam nods. “Sorry about the soup, everyone,” he says to the crowd milling around the pot.

Lewis lets out a forlorn breath at the pot. “You could have been such a great soup,” he says dramatically, caressing the pot.

“It’s quite alright, Mayor,” says the governor, and turns toward Sam. “You know, son, I’ve been to a lot of these, and the best part of the soup is how it has a bit of everyone’s personality in it. This year’s soup was not only not tasty, but it lacked the flavour of community that I look forward to every year.”

“You’re right,” says Sam dejectedly. “I shouldn’t have tried to intervene with the soup. I guess this means you can’t be convinced to shut down our JojaMart?” He looks at the governor hopefully.

“Now, I never said that,” says the governor, winking. “It’s my job to serve the people, even if the people served me awful soup today. I know all about your predicament, but lots of people in Pelican Town rely on JojaMart. I’ll see what I can do, but I’ll also need you to convince the people of Pelican town to be happy without JojaMart by shopping at the local grocer instead. Get them excited about living in a self-sufficient town again.”

“You got it, Governor!” cheers Sam.

—

“Fuck!” yells Abigail, shooting up in bed a week later. “We don’t have enough gold star melons for the community centre!”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP the melons that were never made into [40](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Fortyhands) pink cakes, and RIP the pink cakes that won't be at Sebastian's housewarming or Sam's birthday. :(
> 
> Fic rec of the chapter: [Unlikely Duos](https://archiveofourown.org/series/834840) by _CiderCakesGilly,_ a series that hits my love for exploring characters and relationships super hard. :D


	5. F-Bomb

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“Don’t have any threesomes with Sebastian,” said Caroline four chapters ago._
> 
> _“Mom!” yelled Abigail, also four chapters ago. “First, that’s not your business; and second, Sam and I will have as many threesomes we want, whether that number is zero or a thousand!”_
> 
> Today, Abigail is going to visit the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Stardew Valley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Good to see y'all again! This chapter is super late because it kicked my ASS. ;o;
> 
> Also, the fic rating has been increased to M.

Robin takes three days to build the kitchen and another three to build Sebastian’s cabin, and Sebastian is fully moved in the day before Sam’s birthday. Sam has elected to spend his birthday in town, leaving Sebastian and Abigail alone in the newly renovated kitchen. A heavy summer storm pelts the windows, and the crack of lightning rattles the lightning rods outside, which, in Sebastian’s opinion, is the perfect backdrop for an afternoon at the beach and an evening of tabletop gaming.

Until then, though, Sebastian is spending the morning sorting through a large molehill’s worth of mail while Abigail casually strums her ukelele. “Recipe, Demetrius, recipe, Kent, my paycheque, the Stardew Valley Tribune, recipe, recipe, another paycheque, a thousand more recipes... do people always spam you with recipes?” says Sebastian, flipping through the pile of letters, postcards, and magazine clippings.

“They don’t,” says Abigail. “I guess the town really liked our luau contribution.”

Sebastian snorts, thinking about the three dozen melons that made their way into the potluck. “Or they felt bad that you two obviously don’t know how to cook,” he says.

“What can I say?” says Abigail. “Sam likes JojaMart brand frozen pizza, you’ll eat any raw fish if it’s sliced and presented nicely, and I eat rocks. Gastronomy isn’t any of our strong suits.”

“At least I like real food,” says Sebastian. “Oh, the wizard wants to talk to Sam about the community centre’s rat problem,” says Sebastian, spotting a glossy blue postcard scribbled in white ink. “Didn’t you say that the Junimos are specifically not rats?”

Abigail shrugs. “He sent me the same postcard a few weeks back, and I didn’t visit him because the Junimos are clearly, identifiably magic talking apples.”

“Mhm,” murmurs Sebastian. “Well, it would be pretty bad if he sets up rat traps in there or something.”

“That _would_ be bad,” says Abigail. “Maybe the Junimos are immune to rat poison, but what if they’re not? I need to go set the wizard straight right away!” She dashes outside, shoving a flute in her backpack, and leaving Sebastian alone with the mail and the sound of the rain.

Ah, alone, just as Sebastian likes it. He could head out to the beach early where a rainy day surely means lots of worms to hoe, or he could stare wistfully into the horizon for the loner aesthetic, or he could get some work done...

And then there’s a knock on the door. _Dammit._

—

Halfway down the farm, Abigail realises that she forgot an umbrella, but it’s already 11 o’clock and she’d only be burning daylight by going back. Besides, being in the rain and smelling the fresh dirt is nice too, despite the whole wetness factor. She pulls out her flute and plays an airy jig as she makes her way south of Marnie’s ranch. She usually does this up north in the mountains instead of in the forest, but it seems like the animals here are reacting just as well!

Squirrels and birds and rabbits start trailing around Abigail like she’s a Disney princess or something, and fish hop out of the forest lake as she passes. She wiggles her fingers at them, and the fish wiggle their tails back. Her trek southbound is cheerful and her tune is merry—

—Until it isn’t.

The deep timbre of a low-pitched drum reverberates through the air, hitting Abigail right in the solar plexus. She redirects her path from the wizard’s tower to follow the sound southeast, adapting her melody to match the drum. The animals start marching in sync to the song, hopping through a patch of tilled land and digging disconcertingly even holes into the soil. Abigail follows the tilled ground with her eyes until she sees a man who must be the notorious wizard whose name sometimes crosses the whispers of Pelican Town. His purple hair and wide-brimmed arcane hat are protected under a transparent beach umbrella, and he’s playing a pair of conga drums with arms that are much beefier than Abigail expected. At his feet is a basket that a pair of Junimos are filling with spring onions.

“So you _do_ know that the Junimos aren’t rats!” blurts out Abigail.

The wizard lets his drums clatter on the floor between his legs, and all the woodland animals—including the rats—scatter. Abigail quickly trills a goodbye tune.

 _“Fils de pute,”_ mutters the wizard. “Now I need to harvest and replant _les ciboules, tout seul.”_ He looks up at her, and offers her a hoe. “Well, you might as well help since you interrupted my song.”

(“I can’t believe I’m doing farmwork on my day off out of politeness,” groans Abigail.)

The wizard’s name is Monsieur Rasmodius, “ _mais tout le monde m’appelle_ ‘the wizard,” he adds to his introduction. He persists entirely on a diet of rocks and spring onions _(le soupe aux pierres),_ the latter of which he magically grows because their only natural season is spring and because stone soup is disgusting without alliums. Rasmodius plays drums and hangs out with animals and talking apples, and he tried to be a farmer once, but didn’t succeed because of personal drama reasons. He swears that he doesn’t enslave the animals; he instead respectfully requests their help in exchange for a share of the harvest.

“They only want the spring onions, though,” he says. _“Très bizarre._ I offer them rocks, which are really the foundation of flavour in the soup, but they do not accept the rocks!”

“I eat rocks too!” says Abigail. Finally, someone who understands her predilections. “I’m a geologist.”

“I know,” smirks the wizard wryly. “I go to the luau every year, and nobody seems to like it when you put quartz in the soup pot.”

“Quartz is tastier than the forty melons my boyfriend put in the pot this year,” says Abigail.

The wizard lets Abigail call him Ras.

—

“So you were just able to understand the Junimos?” says Ras, absentmindedly adding coals into an endothermic furnace to dry them off from the rain. The two of them have relocated inside the tower, and Abigail and Ras have been mercilessly grilling each other with questions about the mystic arts while he puts her to work helping him prepare spell components.

“Yeah!” says Abigail. “Both Sam and Sebastian—Sebastian is our bandmate and farmhand and best friend—thought that the Junimos were rats, and you said they were rats too, so I thought I was seeing things.” She looks down at her half eaten piece of void essence. “My mom thought I was delusional when I was little, but my dad convinced her that I was just weird,” she admits.

“Your parents are Caroline and Pierre of Pelican Town?” says Ras.

Abigail nods.

“Well, while I cannot say what disorders you might or might not have,” says Ras, “I can assure you that the Junimos and various magicks are real. When I sent you that message about the so-called ‘rat problem,’ I was prepared to open _ton oeil magique_ with a potion, but it seems as if you were naturally gifted with the sight.”

Abigail smiles wanly and pets a Junimo. “Yes, well. Sometimes people just think it’s a weird quirk and don’t take it seriously.” She sighs. “People know that completing the Junimo quests is important to me so they don’t get in my way, but they don’t understand why it’s important.”

“Yes, that is unfortunately common,” says Ras. “I get away with the quirkiness because I am French.”

“No you don’t,” laughs Abigail. “The townspeople call you the ‘weird guy in the woods.’ Not to be confused with Linus, the ‘weird guy in the mountains’, or Marlon and Gil, the ‘other weird guys in the mountains’.”

“Alas, _c’est vraiment,”_ sighs Ras. “Well, perhaps you should take a bottle of the potion with you. If someone gives you trouble, you can open their magical eye.”

Abigail privately thinks that she doesn’t plan on feeding anyone an unknown substance from someone she met a few hours ago, so she nods politely, takes a bottle, and changes the subject to their apparent mutual interest in drumming and music. Ras and Abigail click in a way that she only feels when she’s communing with nature, and she likes it enough to dig more into it as long as he doesn’t get _too_ weird.

“It is possible that you naturally have a magical eye because you are my daughter,” muses Ras suddenly. “Caroline always insisted that you were Pierre’s, but—”

The synchronicity Abigail has been feeling all day promptly turns dreadfully sour.

“Holy shit,” she says, and runs out the door.

—

It’s early evening when Abigail makes it back to the farm, covered in arcane residue and soot and an air of anger. As soon as she steps on the cobblestone pathway leading in from town, her happy afterglow is swarmed by a gaggle of bats whose wings flap water everywhere. “Aaaaaa!” she screams ferociously, pulling out her crystal dagger and stabbing wildly in every direction. “Today sucks and I hate baaaaaaaats!”

“No!” yell Demetrius and Sebastian in unison, both running around with butterfly nets on top of each others’ heads. “Those are the fruit bats I was installing!” clarifies Demetrius

Abigail tentatively lowers the blade, and sure enough, they’re just fruit bats. They’re only obscuring her vision but not attacking her with flesh-eating teeth. She glares anyway. “Mushrooms! I said you could install mushrooms, not bats!”

“Told you,” says Sebastian.

“...I stand corrected,” says Demetrius. He smoothly removes his net from Sebastian’s head and swings it expertly over a fruit bat.

A stray bat nips at Abigail’s hair, and she breaks down into tears and runs inside.

—

The clock on the farmhouse’s newly installed oven chimes 11AM. The interior floor mat is still wet from the splatter of rain that splashed the ground as Abigail dashed out the door, and Sebastian is similarly splashed with rain when he opens the door to a much more heavily drenched Demetrius.

Sebastian groans. There goes his rainy beach day. “Ugh, it’s you,” are the words that come out of Sebastian’s mouth. Whoops; he’d meant to say _hello_. He supposes that he’s just never learned to politely greet Demetrius. Sebastian tries to backtrack. “I mean, um, were Sam and Abigail expecting you? They didn’t say anything.” It’s entirely possible. Demetrius likes both Sam and Abigail more than he does Sebastian.

“That’s a lot of mail,” says Demetrius. He looks straight past Sebastian at the accumulating pile of recipes on the kitchen table (previously also the tabletop table, and the sheet music table, and the all-kinds-of-trash table). “And to answer your question, yes.”

Sebastian waits, and Demetrius doesn’t elaborate, so Sebastian bites. “They’re not here,” he says. “What are you doing here?” Whoops; he’d meant to say _how can I help you?_

“Abigail has given me permission to install a colony of fruit bats in the farm cave for research purposes.” Demetrius’s mouth turns down. 

“Are you sure? Abigail _hates_ bats, and the farm cave is where we keep our instruments now. The acoustics there are pretty good.”

“Would I have dragged a few hundred bats here if I wasn’t?” says Demetrius.

That’s a good enough explanation for Sebastian.

“Now,” continues Demetrius, “I suppose since nobody else is here to help me with setting up the bats, you’ll do.”

“Sebastian, please help me infest the farm with flying rodents for my science experiment,” says Sebastian, pitching his voice low to mimic Demetrius. “Fine, yes I’ll help, but only because I think bats are cool.” He returns to his normal voice. “Doesn’t Maru usually help you with your research setup?” 

“She’s volunteering in Zuzu City. Besides, you live here now. You should _want_ to help because taking care of your space is important,” says Demetrius sternly, before launching into instructions about how to set up a fruit bat colony.

Ugh, what a dick; being all condescending and paternalistic without actually being any level of paternal.

—

“Holy Batman, Demetrius; that’s a lot of bats,” says Sebastian, looking through his sopping wet bangs at the tarp-covered stack of bat boxes sitting on a wheeled cart that Demetrius must have manually pulled here by himself.

Demetrius chuckles. “That it is. They can roost in the hundreds, you know.”

“Cool,” says Sebastian, and he’s surprised that he means it.

Demetrius pulls off the tarp, and a cacophony of grumpy bat trills fills the air.

“Oh, _so cool!”_ says Sebastian, with stars in his eyes.

“I didn’t know you liked bats, Sebastian,” says Demetrius.

Sebastian shrugs. “Most animals are cool. Bats are nocturnal and they eat mosquitos. What’s not to like?”

“You haven’t smelled bat guano then,” says Demetrius.

“Can’t be worse than Sam’s underwear,” says Sebastian.

Demetrius lets out a whole entire laugh at that, and Sebastian smiles a little too.

—

Bat colony installation is not quick and easy work. It is, instead, rough and dirty, but it’s also smooth and efficient once the instruments have been moved inside the farmhouse and Sebastian and Demetrius get into a rhythm. They work together to build a bat house to support roosting inside the cave, and they settle into a comfortable silence that’s quite novel for both of them.

Well, quiet except for the sounds of the bats and the rain, anyway.

“So, how is being an empty nester, with Maru at the clinic half the time and in Zuzu City the other half?” ventures Sebastian.

“Wonderfully peaceful, now that you’re gone,” says Demetrius.

“Don’t be a dick,” snaps Sebstian.

“I apologise,” says Demetrius. “Antagonising you is an unfortunate habit I’ve picked up.”

“Yeah, no shit,” says Sebastian.

“Let me ask you something non-antagonistic, then,” says Demetrius. “It’s not my business, so I promise to respect your answer.”

Sebastian shrugs, and then when he realises that Demetrius is working with his back to him, he verbalises. “Sure, I guess.”

“You’ve always wanted to move to the city, and I know you’re getting close to your savings goal,” says Demetrius. “But instead of doing that, you’ve built a cabin here to play farmer with your friends who will probably build a family without you someday. Why?”

“It’s not... they’re not going to do that without me. We’ve had that discussion,” says Sebastian. “And, I know you wouldn’t get it, but I’m going to stick with them for as long as possible.”

“And your Zuzu City goals?” presses Demetrius.

“It’s Sam’s dream to be a musician, and there’s so much for Abigail to explore in the city,” insists Sebastian. “The farm will support the three of us moving Zuzu City, which is definitely still on the table.”

“Sam and Abigail—and you, really—have built so much here,” counters Demetrius. “It’s not easy to liquidate something once you’ve put so much of yourself into, especially now that you’re doing animal husbandry.”

“Bats that we don’t have to feed and water don’t count as animal husbandry,” says Sebastian, reaching over to pet a bat with a gloved hand. “Even if they are kind of cute.” But... shit. There _has_ been talk about saving up for a coop and a silo. What does their future look like? Sebastian had all but forgotten his ambitions during the past few months. How _would_ the farm fit into a Zuzu City move?

“Thinking about it?” says Demetrius. “Good. In all relationships, but particularly polyamorous ones, it’s important to understand which page each partner is on.”

“Watch it,” warns Sebastian. “You’re getting on the paternalistic edge of respecting my answers.”

Demetrius sighs. “Maru says that’s something I need to work on.”

Sebastian nods, and is about to say something along the lines of _yes, Maru hates it when you give her boyfriends the shovel talk,_ or maybe _wait, you know about polyamory?_ but then he slips on the ladder and falls on top of Demetrius—

—Who is in the process of letting the bats out of the bat boxes in a manner that is no longer controlled.

Every single bat scatters out of its bat box and flies everywhere.

_Everywhere._

—

A fuming, ill-tempered Abigail stomps home and screams when she’s swarmed by bats until she’s ushered inside.

—

The bat boxes get pretty busted in the commotion, so Sebastian and Demetrius round up the bats and get them in the cave. There’s poop everywhere, and the bats are much less cute now that Sebastian is covered in poop.

“You really should have been more diligent in confirming that Abigail wanted mushrooms, not bats,” says Demetrius.

“Demetrius!” Sebastian wants to yell, but he instead takes a huge breath and starts to speak with steel underlying his words. “We were supposed to be celebrating Sam’s birthday tonight but both my friends came home pissed for some reason and I am covered in rainy bat shit. So can you please, for the love of Yoba, fuck off and leave me alone?” says Sebastian.

Demetrius doesn’t respond, and they finish cleaning up. Unlike the comfortable silence from earlier in the day, this silence is back to being suffocating and awkward like it usually is when they’re fighting.

“I’ll be back next week with functional new bat boxes to collect the bats and mushrooms for the cave,” says Demetrius after a while. “Before I go, may I grab a shower?”

—

“I spent six hours with Demetrius,” says Sebastian, freshly showered and lounging on the bear-shaped plush chair that Gunther gave him a few weeks ago.

“I went to JojaMart to buy seeds because it’s Wednesday,” says Sam, making himself an absolutely disgusting sandwich that’s just a slice of cake smushed between two slices of pizza.

“The wizard said he was my father and gave me drugs,” says Abigail, plopping the potion bottle beside the pizza and then plopping herself in Sebastian’s lap.

Sebastian and Sam agree that Abigail wins the suffering contest.

“Sounds like you all had a bad day,” says Demetrius, also freshly showered and wearing a set of the old but clean clothes that they keep for the scarecrow. “But that last thing is definitely possible.”

Sam drops the pizza-cake sandwich. “Really?” he says through his mouthful of carbs. “Oh, sorry,” he continues, pushing the platter of cake toward Demetrius. “Help yourself.”

“Sam, I appreciate that you can eat whatever you want, especially on your birthday, but that sandwich is truly an abomination,” says Demetrius, not cutting himself any cake. “Somehow, my stepson has the most sensible palate of all of you, and he’ll eat any raw fish if it’s plated nicely.”

“Sure, but let’s talk about the part where Ras is possibly my _father?”_

Demetrius frowns. “Well, it’s not really my story to tell—”

“Nuh-uh,” says Abigail. “Don’t I have a right to know this stuff? What about, like, for medical history reasons?”

“That’s a solid argument,” he says. “So, back when I was a woefully underqualified med student running the Pelican Town clinic, Rasmodius, the wizard, was the town’s resident French Canadian drug dealer. He also sold bootleg _Magic: the Gathering_ cards, but nobody was interested.”

Sebastian inches their copy of _The Solarion Chronicles Playbook_ behind the cake.

“French _Canadian?”_ says Abigail. “He told me he was just French.” She looks disgusted, and everyone else mirrors her expression.

“He thought being European was cooler,” says Demetrius, smiling wryly. “Anyways, my parents had just passed and the wizard was looking to live closer to town, so I rented him a room in my family’s house. Living in town really drummed up business, and Pierre was his biggest customer.”

“Wait, hold on,” says Sebastian. “You lived with a _drug dealer?_ You get on my case for smoking all the time!”

“No, your _mother_ doesn’t like smoking. I’m not bothered by the choices you make about your body,” says Demetrius. “That said, Sebastian, I’ll be honest. I fully thought you were going to grow up into a straight edge white boy until you started smoking, and I’m fairly sure you just did it to be contrary.”

“Not everything I do is about you,” says Sebastian, scowling.

“Anyway, the thing about Ras’s potions is that they unlock _something_ in the user’s genetic makeup that lets them... see magic, I suppose? I’ve spent years trying to quantify it. Maru is also able to see the Junimos, and I believe that I passed that down to her from when I drank Ras’s potion.”

“You can see the Junimos?” says Sam.

 _“Maru_ can see the Junimos?” says Sebastian.

“I knew I wasn’t crazy!” says Abigail. “I mean, mom always said that I just have a vivid imagination, and these two—” Abigail gestures at Sam and Sebastian “—don’t understand but kind of just indulge me. But the most scientifically literate person in town just confirmed that magic is real!”

“It’s perfectly reasonable to not believe in magic!” defends Sam. “But just because I don’t believe in it doesn’t mean that I’m going to stop you from doing something important to you. But, I do want to see what you see. I’ll take some strange drugs.” Sam pours some of the potion onto his pizza-cake sandwich abomination. He shudders. “This tastes like Mountain Dew and it’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, this is a pretty foul liquid,” says Sebastian, also drinking from the bottle. “But the cake was gross before, man.”

 _“Dude,”_ says Sam. “Sebastian. Sebby. Sebs. _Seeeeeebs._ Everything is green and leafy!”

“Aaaand they’re hallucinating,” says Abigail. “That was fast. Sam doesn’t call Sebastian ‘Sebs’ unless he’s super drunk.” She hoists each Sebastian and Sam by the armpit on one of her shoulders, and arranges them both on the big plush bear.

“Don’t worry,” says Demetrius. “It’ll wear off.”

“They’re pretty cute like this, don’t you think?” says Abigail, gazing affectionately at Sam trying to cuddle the life out of Sebastian.

“I decline to answer that,” says Demetrius, a slight hint of a smile on his face.

Abigail laughs. “You know, it’s crazy; I always thought you were the big Zuzu City scientist and Robin was the Stardew Valley native who came back. I didn’t know you used to run the clinic.”

“I think everyone just collectively decided to ignore the time that Ras was in town because it was too weird for small town sensibilities,” admits Demetrius. “But my year in Pelican Town living with Ras and being an underqualified physician was pretty good. I even delivered a baby who grew up to be a skilled geologist.”

“Whoa,” says Abigail, eyes wide.

“Robin and I met after I went back to Zuzu City for my doctorate. We came to Stardew Valley to start a family, and she built our mountain home from scratch,” says Demetrius fondly, and then his expression turns wistful. “I didn’t think I’d come back to the valley, so I sold my family’s house when I left.”

“Why did you think you weren’t coming back?” asks Abigail.

“Ras and I became very good friends in the year we lived together, but he was always a failure when it came to... any sort of personal responsibility, I suppose,” says Demetrius. “He skipped town almost immediately after you were born, and the atmosphere afterwards was suffocating. I left Stardew Valley when the opportunity presented itself.”

“Wait, yes, the wizard possibly being my sperm donor!” exclaims Abigail. “Let’s go back to that. If I could have gotten my magical sight from my dad drinking the potion, then why is it possible he’s my father?”

“Oh! Yes, that’s right,” says Demetrius. “That would be the part where Ras, ah, spent a lot of time with both your parents together.”

“Holy shit,” breathes Abigail. “Mom and Dad _and_ Ras?”

“Man, that’s a lot of truth bombs for a single evening,” says Sam hoarsely, sitting up and coming down from the hallucinations.

“Deadbeat fathers club, hell yeah,” says Sebastian, out of breath and briefly lucid before immediately passing out in the arms of the plush bear.

—

Abigail ushers Demetrius out of the farmhouse, and then she gets Sam to help her hoist Sebastian into their new, insanely huge bed that surely fits at least four people. The bedroom doesn’t have any lamps yet, but their handmade copper indoor brazier illuminates the space and casts hazy shadows across the room. The rain pitter-patters against the window, setting the mood with its romantic percussion. Abigail strips out of her day clothes, tosses them into the laundry hamper, and sits on the bed with her back facing Sebastian’s unconscious body.

“Hey,” murmurs Abigail, watching Sam come out of the shower with damp hair. He approaches the bed and she places a kiss on his jawline, pulling him down to where she’s sitting. Sam is stunning with the dim firelight flickering over the contours of his body like a male boudoir model. 

“You’re beautiful,” whispers Sam, mirroring Abigail’s thoughts. He skims one hand down Abigail’s ribs and wraps the other behind her head, kissing her properly. He’s warm and close, and she sinks into it. They make out for a while before Abigail pulls back.

“Today was supposed to be about you. I’m sorry my drama and the bats got in the way and we didn’t get to do anything else.”

“That’s okay, Abby,” says Sam. “I’ll have tomorrow with you, and every day after that.”

Abigail blushes. “I never even wished you a happy birthday,” she says. “I got you a gift.”

“Aw, for me?” teases Sam, and starts to unzip his pants.

“Oh, so you _don’t_ want the collection of multi-material guitar picks I commissioned for you,” says Abigail, pulling a small box out from under the bed.

Sam gasps. “No way! Dude, thank you!” He opens the box, examining the stack of plectra made of bone, metal, rocks, and synthetic materials. “How’d you know I was looking at starting a collection of cool picks?”

“Well, _I_ was thinking that we haven’t really made music in a while with planning for the luau and dealing with the summer harvest,” says Abigail. “I read online that different picks make different sounds, and this might get us into playing again.”

“Abby, you are a genius,” says Sam, face breaking into a grin. “I can’t wait to experiment with these.” He reaches across the bed to put them on the TV stand, before pulling Abigail on top of him on the bed for more slow makeouts that quickly increase in intensity.

“Wow, hey,” says Sebastian, sleep-rough. Abigail and Sam jump apart, and Sebastian laughs. He looks down, and plucks the waistband of their shared pair of controversial purple underwear, currently being worn by Sam. “Nice underwear. I got you more for your birthday.”

“Sebs!” says Abigail. “Holy shit, I forgot you were there and I’m sorry and... wow, you look insanely hot right now.” Her voice trails off as she takes Sebstian in, laying in their bed with his hair fanned out over the pillow like a fairytale maiden.

Sebastian’s clearly too sleepy to be self-conscious, because he curls his lips into a lazy smile, half-lidded eyes crinkling. “Yeah?”

“Yeah,” breathes Sam, and leans over to kiss him. Sebastian lets him. “You’re, like, glowing under the light of the fire, like a gloomy fairy prince.”

“Lyricist,” teases Sebastian, and kisses back. “Want me to leave you guys to it?”

Abigail flicks her eyes at Sam, who nods almost imperceptibly as if to say _yeah, let’s ask._

“Or you could stay,” says Abigail, gently reaching out to grab Sebastian’s hand and placing her lips at his wrist. “If you want.”

“Let me thank you for the very thoughtful, totally considerate birthday gift,” says Sam, laughing against Sebastian’s skin.

Sebastian starts to retort something, but then his mouth falls open as Sam starts to palm under Sebastian’s shirt and he just nods. “Okay,” he says breathlessly. “Not every night, but tonight.”

“Whenever you want,” agrees Abigail. (Sam nods enthusiastically.) “And not always sex—”

“—But sex tonight. Birthday sex for Sam,” grins Sebastian, sitting up to reach his arms behind his neck and pull his shirt off.

They have sex, and Sebastian gets up to grab a sleeping bag and extinguish the brazier. Abigail falls asleep with Sam’s octopus limbs curled around her and Sebastian’s comforting presence in the room.

—

_Chère Abigail,_

_I know abruptly dropping the father-bomb on you was probably impolite. The hermit lifestyle has not taught me many social graces, and I apologise. I’ve attached a cheek swab if you would like to take a DNA test._

_Regardless of your thoughts about me, I assure you that your work in the community centre is both noble and essential to the balance of magic. You’re doing a good job, and I hope you do not stop._

_M. Rasmodius_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THEY'RE SOFT BECAUSE I LIKE THEM SOFT. *cries*
> 
> Sam was going to have a C-story in addition to Abigail's A-story and Sebastian's hanging B-story, but it got cumbersome so I cut it. Here are some other details I tossed:
> 
>  **Demetrius**  
>  • Demetrius describes himself as an underqualified physician, but he's actually just straight up unlicensed. Pelican Town needed medical care, though, and nobody else was willing to do it at the time. On paper, Demetrius was taking a gap year.  
> • Demetrius WAS on track to become a doctor, but after learning about magic in Stardew Valley, he oriented his work toward scientificating the arcane. Now he does independent research. (Robin and Maru make most of the money in that household. Sebastian paid rent when he lived there.)  
> • There was supposed to be a real OB/GYN to help Caroline give birth, but they didn't arrive in time so Demetrius and Ras had to improvise.  
> • Demetrius's family home was 1 Willow Lane. This may or may not be relevant later, depending on where the story arcs take me. ;)  
> • The person that Demetrius sold his house to was Harvey. Demetrius leaving for school left a vacancy open for a real, fully licensed physician to take over the clinic.  
> • (And then it turned out that when there's nobody adventuring in the mines, Harvey couldn't make enough money to complete the mortgage, so he sold it to Sam's family a few years later.)
> 
>  **Ras**  
>  • Rasmodius is a mononym, because Ras is was born during a time when peasants didn't have last names.  
> • Ras doesn't eat rocks. He drinks the soup in the stone soup.  
> • Ras helped Demetrius deliver Abigail because he's ALSO an underqualified medical practitioner, and two underqualified medical practitioners are better than one.  
> • Ras didn't even consider that Abigail might be his because when she was born, her colouring matched Pierre's almost exactly. It wasn't until Abigail showed up twenty-odd years later with purple hair and magical music that he thought, _Oh shit, I might be on the hook for a looooot of back child support._  
>  • The Caroline/Pierre/Ras dynamic is pretty vague because they nEVER TALKED ABOUT IT and made assumptions that left everyone involved sad and culminated in Ras moving back into the woods.  
> • Ras sells normal drugs in addition to magic drugs. Pierre continues to buy from Ras.
> 
>  **The Band**  
>  • Sam and Abigail were still fighting over what to do with the outdoor spousal space until Sebastian parked his bike there. (Seriously though, what happens when multiple people in a multiplayer game get married?)  
> • Sam was buying seeds from JojaMart because of poor growth season planning, but he spent the rest of the day doing fun things such as going to the hot springs, exchanging egg trivia with Alex at the spa, exchanging foraging information with Linus in the mountains, and visiting his family. He got the pizza from JojaMart and the cake from his mother.  
> • Sebastian's gift for Sam wasn't just a gag gift; he bought underwear that he thought Sam would enjoy wearing based on past experience. Sam realises this.  
> • Sebastian decides to quit smoking, because Demetrius is right. On the inside, he really is a straight edge white boy who just took up smoking to (fail at) annoying his stepfather.  
> • Abigail is actually super insecure about the eating rocks thing.
> 
> Fic rec of the chapter: [Misunderstandings](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20423543) by _Canvasghost_. Unrelated to this fic in every way, but Maru is my favourite occupant of 24 Mountain Road and she deserves a good relationship with her family!!


	6. A Rock Solid Community

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 1 Willow Lane sees some more action.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I move an NPC into the farmhouse, I use their former bedroom as keg storage. I think this unintended marriage perk makes Leah the most eligible bachelorette and Harvey the most eligible bachelor, but Sam is a pretty close contender with how fucking big his bedroom is.

The last two weeks have been so wild with Sebastian moving in, the summer harvest, and actually getting band practice back off the ground. Sebastian begs both Sam and Abigail to keep the bats because they’re _so cute!_ (his words). Sam wanted the mushrooms because mushrooms wouldn’t impede their ability to play music in the cave, and Abigail wanted the mushrooms just because she hates bats. But they cave, no pun intended, because Sebastian never asks for anything and they want Sebastian to get comfortable with asking for things.

(Sebastian actually used puppy eyes! It was... not very effective and kind of stupid-looking, but the fact that he tried was majorly endearing.)

With the cave being used for something actually functional, they turn Sebastian’s cabin into an office-studio hybrid space where they can have band practice. They also hire Maru to hook up some hella good internet in the cabin so Sebastian can keep up with his freelance work and look up farming tips and crop cycles on the internet instead of just playing everything by ear and risking not having enough crops for whatever the hell they need for the Junimos—which Sam can now fully see.

This brings Sam to the second day of fall, during which Sebastian slams into the main farmhouse, yelling that they need to get pumpkin seeds _today_ if they wanted to have pumpkins for the Stardew Valley fair! Abigail _loves_ winning at things, and it’s their first year at the fair as farmers, so of course Sam agrees that they need the seeds. Unfortunately for everyone, Pierre’s is closed at this time of evening.

So, Sam is headed toward JojaMart for the second time in as many weeks. 

_Maybe they should start planning the crop cycles better,_ thinks Sam as he kicks at some rocks grumpily out of habit. At least he can take the minecarts now.

Sam steps into JojaMart, and it’s like he’s been transported back into time. So much of his life has changed since he was fired: the farm has blossomed into a reasonably successful small business, the farm is no longer covered with weeds and debris, they’ve saved enough money to buy a whole-ass kitchen, and most importantly, Sebastian has moved in next door. They’ve also accumulated so many chests inside their house that they’ve had to move the band equipment into a small natural cavern on the farmland with _fantastic_ acoustics. (The instruments are now chilling in Sebastian's cabin.)

But the inside of the Pelican Town JojaMart is still the same as it’s always been, to an almost disturbing degree. Shane has expertly mopped the floors to be shiny and clean, and the cashier still looks dead inside—no more or less than they did before. They raise a single eyebrow at Sam, as if to say, _What are you doing back here in this hellhole?_ Morris also looks the same as before with his slicked-back asshole hair and his smarmy asshole face. He also raises a single eyebrow at Sam, as if to say, _Aha! You truly can’t escape from the evil-toothed moneyjaws of JojaMart!_

Or something like that, anyway.

Sam ignores Morris and beelines it to the melon seeds, hoping to be in and out, but it seems like he forgot how damn big JojaMart’s aisles are. Shane is on shift, but Sam takes care to avoid his aisle. He doesn’t want to be caught _dead_ at JojaMart.

“Sam!” says Jodi from behind Sam. “What are you doing here?” _Fuck._

“Yes ma’am,” he says automatically. Sam’s brain has snapped back to Joja mode, which means _yes ma’am_ is his default response to any conversation directed at him. “Wait, that’s not an answer to your question. You guys are here late. Happy birthday, Penny!” he babbles.

“Sam Sam Sam!” says Vincent, rushing forward from behind to hug Sam’s waist. “I love you!”

“Aww, I love you too buddy,” he says, patting Vincent’s shoulder and wow, did Vincent get tall in the past two months? “Did you get taller?”

“Miss Penny says I grew two inches this year, so we’re celebrating by buying her things!”

 _That’s a weird leap of logic,_ thinks Sam. He looks over at the shopping cart, which contains a toothbrush, some toiletries, and a Joja-branded sleeping bag.

And then it dawns on Sam. But, just to be sure that he’s not making any weird leaps of logic like Vincent... “Penny, are you okay?” Sam asks carefully, gently prying Vincent off him.

Penny’s face crumples, and she launches herself into Sam’s arms, crying. Vincent immediately grabs onto Sam’s leg again. As she closes in, Sam notices the bruises on her knees and a blossoming bump on her chin. He also notices that Penny is not wearing her regular clothes or shoes, but some polka dotted pajamas and a pair of bunny slippers whose fuzz has been matted with stones and dirt. Behind her, his mother waves a hand at her throat in a _don’t talk about it_ motion.

“Of course! Penny is quiet and great with Vincent and practically family; of course it makes sense to move in with the family,” Sam babbles, strained. “Maybe she’ll even get this family to shop at local businesses instead of JojaMart.”

“...I guess it’s fine that you know,” whispers Penny. “You know that time we hit six hearts with Shane and found him passed out in the mountains?” 

Sam nods. (He’s probably not at six hearts with Shane anymore.)

“The same thing happened to my mom. I got her to the clinic, and Doctor Harvey is taking care of her, but I d-don’t want to be alone tonight,” she says. “Please don’t tell anyone,” she adds. “This town is s-so small.”

Sam wants to smack himself. They’re not just shopping at JojaMart because it’s late and they don’t want to wait until tomorrow; they’re avoiding the town’s rumour mill.

“Hey,” says Sam, pulling back and grasping her shoulders. “Nobody has to know. You were never here, and I was never here, and we never ran into each other at JojaMart. Yeah?"

The next morning, Sam bails on planting the pumpkin seeds, citing a family emergency. Instead, he makes the trek down to his parents’ house at stupid o’clock in the morning, where he quietly unlocks the back door with the house key that he still has.

—

Penny is sleeping on the living room couch in her Joja branded sleeping bag and covered in Kent’s shock blanket. Jodi is up early making breakfast, and Sam taps her shoulder. She jumps and drops the egg she’s frying.

“Oh dear!” whisper-gasps Jodi, and drops the egg.

A year ago, Sam would have freaked out at the dropped egg, and the Jodi would have gotten upset and yelled at him, and then Sam would have gotten mad at her for yelling over an accident. Still now, Jodi wibbles her lower lip, but Sam just calmly throws out the ruined egg and cleans up the floor.

Next, Sam grabs a new egg and scrambles it. Over the past two weeks, Sam put a lot of effort into learning how to cook eggs in particular because even though his bandmates have taken over most of the cooking, neither Abigail nor Sebastian are willing to touch eggs.

“You learned to cook,” says Jodi. Tears well up in her eyes. “My boy’s growing up!”

Sam flushes. “It’s just eggs,” he says. “I’m still working at real recipes.”

Jodi and Sam make enough food for breakfast for five. Or rather, Jodi makes most of it, and Sam scrambles enough eggs to feed five people. Work is quick with an extra set of hands, and they finish in time for Vincent and Penny to wake up and for Kent to come in from his morning walk.

“It’s good to have you home, Sam,” says Kent quietly over breakfast. It seems like every time that Sam has talked to his father since his departure from the house, Kent has been quiet.

“So what’s up with Penny?” asks Sam. “Is this going to be a permanent situation?”

“Well... maybe,” says Jodi. “If you’re okay with us giving her your room.”

“Well, yeah,” says Sam. “It’s pretty wasteful to let an empty room just sit there.”

“Then... thank you for your hospitality,” says Penny, smiling at the whole family. “I think my mother will be checking into an in-patient rehab facility, and it’ll be nice to have company until she comes back.”

“No!” exclaims Vincent. Everyone turns to look at him. “I just mean... I miss you,” he sniffs. “I thought when Dad came back, we’d all be here, but then you left. And I love Miss Penny, but if she takes your room, then you’re _never_ coming back.”

“Aw, bro,” says Sam. He looks up at his parents, panicked because Vincent is perceptive, and it’s not like the kid is mistaken or anything.

“Sam is _always_ welcome home,” says Kent, and Jodi nods in affirmation. “Just because Sam is building his own life now doesn’t mean he’s not part of this family.”

“You can always come visit me!” Sam jumps in. “And... I’ve been busy getting the farm off the ground, but I promise to come visit more.”

“And,” adds Penny, “it’s not like I’ll be here forever. I’ll be back home before you know it, but we can hang out lots while I’m here. I’ll learn to play that card game you and Sam like and we can have tons of fun.”

“Okay!” Vincent nods emphatically, looking much less sad than before. “I love you, Miss Penny!”

Everyone around the table laughs.

—

And yet, it seems like there’s no escaping the town gossip, because as soon as they’re done cleaning up the breakfast dishes, Marnie and Lewis practically skip into the living room.

“I heard Penny was here!” sings Marnie, before tilting her voice to a more sombre inflection. “I’m very sorry about your situation. Here, we brought you some groceries to help out.” She gently stacks a few paper bags’ worth of milk and eggs and cheese on the kitchen counter.

“It wasn’t me!” Sam defends immediately when his parents look his way. Shit, this is why he moved out.

“Morris came by this morning to deliver well wishes for Pam because he didn’t know where to actually find her!” says Lewis cheerfully. “Marnie just, ah, happened to be there too.”

“And then we confirmed it with Shane,” says Marnie.

“And I spread the word around town so they can help out!” finishes Lewis.

Sam narrows his eyes. “That’s a very bold choice for two people with their own secrets,” he says. Sam can see it with Lewis and Marnie, but Morris? Morris never interacts with the town, except, evidently, to pay lip service to something that wasn’t his business. Somehow, Sam has become the only person in town who can keep his mouth shut.

Lewis and Marnie both simultaneously flame red and look chagrined at Sam’s words, and everyone else tactfully keeps their mouths shut.

Penny sighs. “Thank you for the groceries and well wishes. _No thank you_ to Morris, who approved selling my mother vodka when she went into JojaMart clearly drunk. Add _that_ to the town news cycle.”

The rest of the morning sees a slew of gifts from other townspeople. Evelyn drops by with some baked goods and George sends Alex over with a pile of rocks. Alex apologises for the rocks, and directs Penny to some Al-Anon resources. Harvey drops by with a jar of pickles and an assurance that he did not break doctor-patient confidentiality (so it seems like Sam is actually one of _two_ people with discretion). Emily comes over with some spare clothes that Penny doesn’t really need but seems to appreciate, and Leah invites her out to dinner with herself and Elliott—no substances present. Demetrius and Pierre show up with fresh flowers and more groceries respectively.

Penny makes the call to close the doors when even Clint comes over with ores that Penny can’t think of any peripheral use and a question about Emily’s whereabouts.

“This is very generous,” says Penny, staring at the gift-covered kitchen counter, “but I don’t need all these things!”

Sam also stares, flabbergasted, at the gift-covered kitchen counter. Somehow, in all his years of living here, it’d never hit him how much this town was capable of. Sure, he’d been cognizant of the idea that the townspeople are generally kind and helped each other out, and sure, he understood the notion of collective action, but to see the pile of gifts to help Penny out was something else. Even if the items weren’t all entirely useful.

“Clearly, the town is willing to help,” says Sam. “Is there anything you _do_ need?”

Penny sets up a donation stand and an oversized greeting card in the town hall for non-perishable foods and cash to pay for Pam’s rehab. The word spreads, and soon, everyone shows up with well wishes, gifts, or to take back any of the gifts that they didn’t need. George insists that Penny keep the rocks, because _“You need them more than I do, young lady.”_

Morris shows up too, because Morris has no tact.

“I’m very sorry about whatever happened with your mother, valued JojaMart customer,” smarms Morris. “I considered bringing a bottle of your mother’s favourite wine, but then I thought better.” He picks up the pen to sign the card, but a pebble hits the back of his hand as he moves to uncap it.

Morris’s nose furrows, and he tries again. A second pebble whips at his forehead. “Hey!” His eyes dart around the crowd, trying to figure out where the pebbles came from.

“You don’t get to sign that!” exclaims Penny, brandishing a fistful of pebbles. “You sold my mother alcohol when she was _clearly_ drunk.”

Morris bows, and the wrinkles in his face rearrange to look contrite. “Well, I’m afraid that JojaMart has a blanket anti-discrimination policy, not even against drunkards, but of course I understand your decision.” He drops a small handful of cash into the donation box. “A personal donation,” he clarifies at the crowd’s increasingly suspicious faces. “Not on behalf of JojaMart.”

Penny flicks a final pebble at the nape of Morris’s neck as he turns to leave. “Thank you,” she grouses. “But I am still never shopping at JojaMart again.”

“Like I said,” says George. “You need those rocks!” The town bursts into uproarious laughter, drowning out Lewis’s token anti-violence protest.

Sam _doesn’t_ help pelt Morris with rocks, but only because this is Penny’s moment. The town’s raucous dies into titters and grumbles, and for the first time since the luau incident, Sam feels like he understands the whispered gossip.

—

“Hey,” says Sam as the sun dips down below the horizon. He and Penny are hanging out at the river dividing the east and west halves of town. Sam has his fishing line in the water, but he’s not really paying attention to any bites. “I’m sorry that you didn’t get to have the privacy you wanted with this whole situation.”

Penny leans on the side of the bridge. “That’s okay,” she says. “Morris was pretty awful, but everyone knowing turned out to be not as bad as I thought it would.”

“Really?” says Sam. “Are you just saying that? The last time the town’s rumour mill was focused on me, it was pretty awful.”

Penny shrugs. “Everyone was nice and supportive, and this town really means well, you know? Nobody was rude or passive-aggressive. I know you think your parents and maybe the town’s parents in general are fussy and you’re not wrong, but...” she trails off for a minute, staring a thousand yards into the distance. “That’s a pretty good change from what my mom is like. It really did warm my heart to see everyone coming together.”

“Yeah,” says Sam. “I’m glad that the town is being so supportive.” His tone becomes contemplative. “I never considered that the town could do _so much,_ but I guess the town is really able to take care of its own.”

—

Abigail looks down at the Junimos’ request list, and her chipper mood wrinkles into a muted stress that matches the gloomy clouds in the midday sky that she usually finds so delightful. She’s alone at the community centre dropping off the last of the summer crops after helping Sebastian cook a shockingly tasty meal—who knew the dude could cook? After lunch, Sebastian had absconded back into his cabin for some programming work, which left Abigail free to go on the quests for the Junimos.

(Does his cooking prowess make up for the fact that Sebastian has been appallingly bad at farming and horticulture? She hasn’t decided yet.)

Abigail mentally catalogues how she could get the missing items as quickly as possible. The seasonal foraging bundles and fall crops would come with time. Maybe she could buy some red cabbage and exotic forageables at the Stardew Valley Fair. The fruit bats would, hopefully, provide her with the fruit she needed. Truly, what she’s missing is the giant litany of fish and animal products.

(Man, if she’d taken Morris up on his JojaMart membership offer, she could have just paid him with the melon profits to build the community infrastructure that the Junimos are building. What a shame that she has morals.)

Abigail turns tail and heads down the fenced path into town, stopping at the big unexpected crowd congregated at the town square. Morris briskly walks away from the edge of the crowd, and while Abigail doesn’t really know Morris, she’d hazard a guess that this speedwalk was Morris’s version of running away.

She stands at the edge of the crowd and listens to the whispers before giving up on deciphering anything and pushing through the crowd. She’s really looking for her parents, but bumps into Marnie first. She’s carrying a basket of gracefully packaged goods, and she looks like she knows what the crowd is up to.

“Hello, Abigail!” sings Marnie. “What did you bring for Pam?”

Abigail’s hands involuntarily move to cover her mouth. “Oh no! Did I miss a birthday?” She steals a shifty glance at her own basket, whose contents she _just_ emptied into the arms of two dozen eager Junimos.

“Oh, you haven’t heard?” says Marnie. “Pam is going to rehab, so Penny is raising money for the treatment and collecting non-perishables for a gift basket. I think I brought too much cheese, though.” She looks forlornly at her big cheese wheel. “Hey, would you like some of whatever Penny can’t take?”

Abigail nods eagerly, an idea circling around her head.

—

_We have a whole litany of items that we will exchange for cash or favours! It’s for an important community project, which may or may not involve strengthening our community bonds and taking down JojaMart._

_[truncated list of quest items]_

_Abigail_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morris is a human being with nuanced complexities, but he can still get rekt. >:D
> 
> Also, the band's chore split looks like this:
> 
> [Chores]  
> Cooking: Sebastian, Abigail  
> Laundry/Dishes/Trash: Sam, Abigail  
> Organisation: Sebastian, Sam  
> Cleaning (Kitchen): Abigail  
> Cleaning (Bathroom): Sam  
> Cleaning (Sebastian's Cabin): Sebastian  
> Cleaning (Rest of the Farmhouse): everyone
> 
> [Farming/Development Skills]  
> Farming: Sam (tiller)  
> Fishing: Sam (fisher), Sebastian (trapper)  
> Mining: Abigail (excavator)  
> Combat: Abigail (fighter)  
> Foraging: Sebastian (gatherer), Sam (forester)
> 
> [Things that each character doesn't do]  
> Sam: cook (banned)  
> Sebastian: almost all of the farmwork (a weenie)  
> Abigail: inventory (shit at math)
> 
> Fic rec of the chapter: [New Americana](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7704676) by Fyrelass! *bangs pots and pans together* FOUND FAMILY FOUND FAMILY FOUND FAMILY


	7. Much Ado About l'Oeuf

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's mid-autumn, and the Stardew Valley Fair is swinging strong! There's a creatives' booth that Sebastian has been roped into running for a couple of shifts. At least he still gets to enjoy the fair in between.
> 
> Alternate summary: A chicken farmer, a Zuzu City businessman, and a wizard walk into the Stardew Valley Fair.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Love" is a term in tennis used to mean "nothing" (zero points). This comes from the French word, "l'oeuf," which means "the egg," because eggs look like the number zero.
> 
> This fic has hit 20k! We're about 75% through the fic, and I'm excited about the next two sections. I fully thought this was going to be an anthology of short vignettes when I started writing, but the ideas built up on themselves and the last few chapters have been longer than I expected. So, here we are at 20k! :P
> 
> Lastly, I noticed a couple of new readers at the 15k mark, so hello! (^_^)/

For the first year ever, Pelican Town’s harvest festival has a creatives’ booth. The call-to-action sits bright and shiny on Marnie’s shoddily designed festival brochure, and it claims that this year, in addition to showing off the Valley’s finest produce, a variety of local creatives will be displaying their grand masterpieces and selling merchandise. Come support Pelican Town’s independent creatives, and all that!

In reality, the table was added last minute because the fortune teller broke her crystal ball and couldn’t make it out from the desert. (Abigail was heartbroken. On her birthday, no less!) Nobody was notified until two days before the fair and Lewis needed a certain number of display tables to get government funding he needed. So, the mayor went knocking on every door until he was able to cobble a table together.

And that’s how Sebastian finds himself manning a table sparsely covered with Emily’s jewelry, samples of Leah’s sculptures, copies of Elliott’s poetry zine, and year-old copies of his band’s discography.

Nobody has enough material to fill a table by themselves. The days before are a mad scramble for Leah to dig up some work to sell, and for Emily to frantically make some new jewellery. Abigail and Sam are busy figuring out the farm’s display, so Sebastian takes over the band’s contribution to the art table. All Sebastian and Elliott have to do is reprint copies of existing work, so they also take care of most of the decorations. Namely, this involves carving a disgusting amount of display jack-o-lanterns, which Sebastian is pretty awful at. He does get better after the dozenth pumpkin, and his final carving is of a chicken that doesn’t look half bad.

With the four creatives working together, they put together a slipshod table that, while not slick and professional, _is_ filled and functional. They learn about each other’s work and work out a shift system of two people at the table at once.

“It’s okay!” Emily reassures everyone right before the fair’s opening. “Our booth will look... rustic and collaged. It’ll embody the heart of Stardew Valley.”

Sebastian is skeptical about the booth embodying the heart of the valley, but sure. One could certainly call the table rustic.

—

Leah is Sebastian’s first booth co-host, and Emily and Elliott go off to experience the fair. It turns out Leah is actually great with customers from her Zuzu City days as a sales rep, so Sebastian leaves Leah to do most of the talking. Instead, he makes notes of what’s been sold on his laptop. He has a spreadsheet open in one window, Minesweeper open in another, and a text processor with some other work open in yet a third window. He’s busy planting flags on the Minesweeper board when a dust-covered hand shoves an inky black egg in his face.

Immediately, his nose is assaulted with the scent of expired hair dye, and his spine tingles pleasantly. Sebastian’s hand twitches for a smoke, but Emily has expressly banned him from smoking around her textiles. He clicks a box in Minesweeper instead. “Aw shit,” he says, seeing the dead emoji face at the top of his screen.

Shane plops the black egg on the table. It’s gooey, which is a little bit disgusting but a lot bit cool.

“Is this for me?” says Sebastian. The scent is growing on him. Is the egg getting darker before his very eyes?

“Did you not leave it in my coop?” says Shane.

“Gross,” says Leah, moving everything on the table away from the ooze dripping off the egg and wrinkling her nose at the scent. “Smells like tobacco. No offense.”

“How dare you? This egg is beautiful,” says Sebastian. And it does _not_ smell like tobacco. Sebastian is very intimately acquainted with the scent of tobacco, and the egg definitely has a chemical trash smell, thank you very much. “I would never let it go unattended.”

Shane shrugs. “Well, if you didn’t put it there, then I suppose one of my chickens laid it. You're the only one in this town who has an actual chance of liking it, so do you want it?”

“Yesssss,” whispers Sebastian, picking up the egg and cupping it in his hands. The goo on the shell is not the waxy coating that chickens leave when they lay eggs. Instead, it seems to wisp away when he wipes at it. Once the goo is gone, the shell is the deepest, most soulless darkness that Sebastian has ever seen, appearing to absorb light like black velvet.

“Are you going to keep it and raise it as a pet rock?” says Leah, chuckling. “Become an egg dad?”

“Maybe,” he says. Leah does not. “It’s still warm.” He empties out a paper cup and fills it with hay from a nearby decorative bale, and gently lowers the egg into it. He’s seen a similar structure in Marnie’s barn for holding eggs, so a mini bed couldn’t hurt, right? He spends so long pondering the egg bed and staring at the beautiful egg that he thinks he starts to see the composite colours that make up the black. The eggshell isn’t null, but instead is _all_ the colours! Swirling in his eyes are flakes of colour floating around the darkness, sort of like the neon lights across the Zuzu City skyline that Sebastian sees when he climbs high enough into the mountains.

Beside him, Leah makes three entire sales before Sebastian remembers to mark down the numbers. Even more belatedly after, Sebastian lifts his head up to thank Shane, but Shane is long gone.

—

Sebastian takes a break to pop by the farm’s second-place display and hang out with Abigail, who’s fuming because they sold all the good crops to Pierre’s winning display, dammit! Sebastian thinks this is a hilarious injustice, and buys Abigail a fedora to make her feel better.

“If you make enough star tokens in the latter half of the day, you should buy a stardrop,” she says. “It’s delicious! The flavour reminds me of my favourite things: adventuring and magic.”

Sebastian kisses her then, chasing the remaining flavour of the fruit from Abigail’s mouth. He privately doesn’t see how a fruit can taste like adventuring, but it _is_ the best thing he’s tasted all day. He can’t quite place the flavour, but he really likes it. Almost as much as he likes the black egg nestled in his cup.

“Honey, I support you and all your life choices, but that egg is pretty gross and I’m questioning your taste,” says Abigail.

—

When Sebastian heads back to the booth after lunch, Elliott is already there, shirtless and getting sunscreen rubbed into his skin by Leah to an upbeat, royalty-free pop soundtrack. Leah finishes just as Sebastian comes back to relieve her of her post.

“It’s the middle of fall,” says Sebastian as Elliott continues to bask shirtless.

“A tan is a tan, darling,” winks Elliott, just as clouds start to roll in and block the sun. He sighs in disappointment, but doesn’t put his shirt back on.

Sebastian wrinkles his face, and so does a customer. Sebastian realises what they must look like: a golden-skinned bachelor with the body of a muscle-bound god; and a scrawny, pale young adult drowning in a black sweater. Suddenly, he feels like hiding behind the fabric, or the screen of his laptop, instead of making fun of Elliott for trying to get a tan in the albeit sunny fall chill.

“Well now,” says the stranger, lifting everything and inspecting them, including the needle of the record player. “I can see why Leah moved to this middle of nowhere town.” He rakes his eyes down Elliott’s bare chest and smirks. The music fizzles to a halt, and Sebastian’s hackles rise at the blatant display of baseless authority.

“I beg your pardon?” says Elliott. Sebastian can almost feel a blast of cold air in his face from the instant that Elliott’s face transforms from casual and chill to charged and chilly.

“I don’t know if Leah has mentioned me,” says the stranger, cocking a hand on the bright red belt adorning his pressed trousers and peering through some expensive-looking sunglasses. “I’m Kel. Leah was very dear to me in Zuzu City, and I never understood why she would want to leave for some hodunk village. But now that I’m here, I can see how Pelican Town can be quite... quaint. Such a smattering of personalities! A country beefcake and a melancholy man.” He turns to Sebastian. “Say, that music wasn’t yours, was it? Your album certainly looks a little heavier.”

“Uh, no,” says Sebastian, mouth moving on autopilot. “We make experimental folk music.”

Without asking permission, Kel slices open the plastic shrink wrap on one of the band’s collectible vinyl records using one of his sharp-pointed acrylic nails. “You really should be playing your product if you’re going to be selling it,” he says, neatly slotting the vinyl into the record player. Far be it that experimental folk music isn’t really appropriate for a harvest festival, or anything.

A smooth melody surrounds the booth, but it’s underlaid by a discordant, off-putting backing track. The noise grates, just as it’s supposed to. Kel sways his head a bit to the beat, matching the oscillating time signature perfectly. Sebastian can’t help but be a bit impressed.

“Elliott,” grits out Elliott, standing to his full height and holding out a hand. “Charmed to make your acquaintance. I hail from Zuzu City too.”

Kel startles a bit, but takes the hand. Sebastian can see the blood vessels in Elliott’s hand bulge as they squeeze each other’s hands.

Then they let go of each other, and Elliott opens his mouth.

“Pelican Town is quite inspiring, actually,” says Elliott effortlessly. Sebastian can see that the fire in his eyes has steeled into sharp daggers, and he’s sure Kel can see it too. He’s a little too mesmerised by Elliott’s display of earnest inspiration to disagree with that statement. “I moved down here to find a muse for my writing, but instead I found a magnificent community whose presence makes my entire life better. I know Leah feels the same way.”

“Well, then, it’s wonderful to meet you, Elliott!” beams Kel, flashing his teeth.

“Would you like to buy anything, Kel?” says Elliott. The steel in his eyes has not softened. “Pelican Town has a lot of creative talent.”

“I did come down here to buy—” Kel grandly sweeps his gaze across the table “—all of those.” He points to the range of Leah’s tabletop sculptures and prints.

“...Dude,” says Sebastian when Elliott sits dumbfounded, mouth agape. Sebastian can’t tell if he’s come to the same conclusion as Sebastian has, or if he’s mentally tallying the price of everything Kel wanted to buy, or both. “You know it’s super creepy to buy all of your ex’s stock, right?”

Elliott shakes himself out of it. “Of course it would be!” he affirms. “This fine gentleman would surely do no such thing, and has no ulterior motives other than experiencing the offerings of rural life, right?”

Kel rolls his eyes exaggeratedly. “Fine. I’ll buy _one_ thing to support Leah. I’ll also buy—” Kel actually looks at the rest of the table this time, eyes stopping on Sebastian’s makeshift nest “—that delightful looking egg there. It smells horrific, but it surely would fetch a pretty penny.”

“That’s not for sale,” snaps Sebastian, grabbing the egg and clutching it defensively to his chest. “And you know what? Because you broke the packaging on one of the vinyls, you have to pay for it. Those things are expensive to order.”

“Oh, very well,” huffs Kel. He snatches the record off the player again, not bothering to lift the needle this time and creating a loud screech. Sebastian packages it up for him in a plastic envelope, which Kel tucks into a designer cross-shoulder purse. “You really are quite good at music. You could be successful if music is something you want as a career.” He flips a business card backwards as he leaves, directly into the egg cup. Sebastian pulls the card out to look at it, and it lists Kel’s name as an account representative at an entertainment company.

 _Fulfilling dreams for you and yours,_ reads the card.

“What a twat,” says Elliott, sliding the initial vinyl disc back onto the record player. “Leah told me that you want to raise the egg as a pet rock,” he adds, chuckling. “At least it won’t add to your farming workload.”

“And so what if I’m raising the egg?” challenges Sebastian. He doesn’t know why he’s being defensive, because he’s _not_ going to raise it like a pet rock. He just... really likes the egg.

“Hey, you’ll be a perfectly fine egg dad,” says Elliott. He swivels his chair around with his body, which is quite a feat considering the chair is a folding chair. “Kel wasn’t wrong. There’s space in Zuzu City for budding musicians, and you can raise your, er, pet egg if you choose to go there.”

“Yeah, maybe,” agrees Sebastian. “Music is kind of more Sam’s thing, though.”

“Well, aren’t you a band?” says Elliott.

Sebastian shrugs and doesn’t answer the question, and they let the conversation die as the clouds roll back and the royalty-free pop music starts up again.

—

After his shift with Elliott, Sam whisks Sebastian away to play carnival games, and they have a blast one-upping each other. Sam does way better than Sebastian at the fishing game, but Sebastian blows Sam’s fishing skills out of the water with the shooting game.

“Maybe I can be a slingshot ranger in Abigail’s mining party,” says Sebastian after they leave the prize booth. His arm swings as he lets Sam hold his hand. Out in the corner of his eye, he sees Kel and his get splashed with a hoof full of dirt by one of Marnie’s cows, and smothers a smirk. Sam is distracted with buying a stardrop from the prize booth.

Sebastian had enough stars to claim his own stardrop too, but he dipped into his stash to buy Sam a fedora instead. The way it’s sitting on Sam’s spiked, gelled hair induces a round of laughter out of the both of them.

“Oh my gosh, Sebs, you _have_ to try this,” moans Sam around his stardrop. “It tastes like... a revolution?” His face contorts into a puzzled expression. “Maybe a little bit like those really sugary cookies Vincent made once. Mostly like victory over JojaMart, though!” His face relaxes as he chews and swallows the rest of the Stardrop.

“Good?” asks Sebastian, watching Sam’s rainbow of facial expressions.

“Amazing,” says Sam, looking a little bit blissed out. “The opposite of the feeling that your horrible egg invokes in me.”

Sebastian is a little bit offended on behalf of the egg, so he leans in and kisses Sam behind the fishing tent to distract himself from the offense. Again, Sebastian doesn’t really understand how a fruit can taste like anything abstract such as overthrowing a corporation, but he’s not sure what it _does_ taste like. It’s nice, with a fresh fruitiness and notes of something else, but Sebastian can’t quite place what the something else is.

Regardless of how tasty the stardrop might be, Sebastian doesn’t regret getting the fedora. Sam and Abigail will look super cute when they match! Besides, Sebastian will probably make enough money out of his share of the artist booth’s tip jar to buy himself one later.

—

The fair is still going strong in the early evening, but the creatives’ booth has sold everything. It would be an impressive feat if their stock wasn’t a measly pile of last-minute cobble to begin with, though. The four of them agree to pack up early and leave business cards for anyone who wants to contact them. 

As Sebastian and Emily spend the final moments of their last shift packing up the display, the bustling festival sounds around them are replaced by a low drum beat that, if life was a video game, would sound like a character soundtrack for a wizard.

“Wait!” pants the wizard in question. “I almost didn’t come to the festival because Welwick’s crystal ball was out sick, but I heard through the grapevine that there was a void egg!” A couple of junimos poke their faces out of the robe’s heavy pockets. Sebastian’s spine goes ramrod straight.

“Nnnooooo,” says Sebastian uncomfortably. He surreptitiously moves the egg behind a jewellery display case that is, unfortunately, made of clear acrylic and empty of jewellery.

“Oh, and you have a makeshift incubator for the void egg, too!” says the wizard. “I’ll buy them off you. With cash. Or drugs, if you want drugs instead.”

 _Void egg._ What an apt name for such a pleasantly dark ovoid!

“Not for sale,” says Sebastian, gripping the egg behind the clear display case. “It’s mine to raise and cherish.”

“I would raise and cherish it,” protests the wizard. “As much as you can raise an unfertilised egg that will never become a chicken.” The junimos hop out of the wizard’s robes and start poking at the egg. They tuck themselves around the display cases in a way that would normally hide themselves from view, if the display cases weren’t made of clear acrylic. Still, Emily doesn’t seem to notice them and continues to stare dumbfounded at Sebastian’s conversation.

Sebastian internally rolls his eyes, because really? The absentee father, raising an egg? He doesn’t say that out loud, and the wizard either ignores or doesn’t catch the social cue. Instead, he says, “That’s not an attitude that gets you an egg baby, buddy. You can’t even take care of a human baby.”

“Human baby?” The wizard looks puzzled, and then his expression clears. “Ah, you must be one of my Abigail’s bandmates. The gloomy one, I presume?”

Beside him, Sebastian can see Emily mouth the words _Abigail_ and _wizard_ and _purple,_ and Sebastian can see the gears turning in her head. Emily is by no means the town’s biggest gossip, but she _is_ responsible for the whole town knowing about the band’s shared pair of underwear, so she’s no saint either.

“Hey man,” says Sebastian, before the wizard can open his mouth again. “Let’s take a walk.”

—

The dirt pathway kicks up behind them as Sebastian ushers the wizard away from the fair and into the graveyard. Sebastian doesn’t spend much time here, but it’s quiet and secluded away from the bustling festival activities. It’s also a little bit gloomy with the fog that seems to permanently drift across the graveyard grounds, despite the sun still blaring bright in the sky.

They stand at an impasse for a while, neither breaking the silence. Sebastian doesn’t do awkward silences, and this isn’t uncomfortable or awkward. This is just... a silence where Sebastian can’t quite figure out what he wants out of this conversation, so he mulls over a couple of different conversation starters in his head. What does one say to his potential deadbeat father-in-law who ditched both his possible daughter _and_ his relationship?

“What’s so special about the egg?” he says finally. It’s not really what he wants to know, but it’s polite, probably.

The wizard looks taken aback at the question. “Void chickens are very rarely occurring, but their eggs are rather versatile as magic components,” he says. “I used to have a pretty steady supply, but my ex-wife took the void chicken with her when we separated.”

“I mean—why do _I_ like it so much when everyone else seems so grossed out by it? Even Abigail hates the egg, and she’s pretty open to weird magic shit.”

“It’s just rare,” says the wizard, confused. “And objectively repulsive, so I don’t know why you’re so adamant on keeping it.”

“Guess I have weird taste,” says Sebastian, thinking about how nobody else, not even the wizard, has noticed all the colours within the void. He absentmindedly pets the egg, and they stand quietly again. This time, there’s no avoiding it. The silence _is_ awkward.

“Did Abigail tell you about the nature of our relationship?” asks the wizard, abruptly breaking the silence.

Sebastian nods once, recalling Abigail’s minor crisis last month. He knows that she hasn’t sent anything off to testing yet, but she does have his cheek swab sitting safely in the fridge. The wizard says that he can call him by his name.

“I didn’t think Abigail was mine when she was a baby,” says Rasmodius. “She had neither my colouring nor my affinity for _les magiques._ Now, I am uncertain.”

“I’m not the one you should be explaining yourself to,” says Sebastian.

 _“Oui, je sais, je sais.”_ Rasmodius waves him off. “I am going somewhere with this.” When Sebastian doesn’t say anything, he continues hesitantly. “You’re the third in a relationship with Abigail and her other bandmate, yes?”

Sebastian nods once with a question on his lips and, apparently, the rest of his face too.

“I was a third once, too; I can recognise polyamory when I see it. It’s not always easy, and emotions can be volatile things.”

“Is this a shovel talk or are you giving a stranger unsolicited relationship advice?” asks Sebastian.

“It’s not a shovel talk!” says Rasmodius, before realising that his hackles are raised, so to speak, and calms down. “I don’t know what exact claim I have to fatherhood, but it’s certainly not enough to give a shovel talk. I’m just warning you that triads, or any non-traditional relationships, come with complicated territory, and you need to truly know what you want so you can decide whether to be on board with what your partners want.”

“My biological dad was a deadbeat piece of shit, my stepdad and one father-in-law are generally mediocre, and Abigail’s maybe-daddy... well, you know who you are,” says Sebastian. Why were the adult men in his life so disappointing? “So if my partner had a kid, I would be emotionally present so that I could actually have a fucking claim to their future spouse’s shovel talk.”

Rasmodius looks thoroughly chastised at that. “I suppose there’s no convincing you to sell me the egg, then?”

Before Sebastian can deny him again, the egg cracks open inside its tiny makeshift incubator.

“You said it was unfertilised!” accuses Sebastian.

—

The first thing the ultra-black baby chicken _(“the void chick,”_ says Rasmodius) does is vomit all over both their shoes, and Rasmodius immediately decides he no longer wants the chicken. He gives Sebastian a couple of void chicken care tips and cites the tower’s unsuitability for animal care. Sebastian takes the latter with a grain of salt because of course Rasmodius doesn’t want to take care of a living being.

But, well, neither does Sebastian, so what does that say about his spiel about being emotionally responsible?

After he ditches the wizard, Sebastian takes his share of today’s tips to the festival shop and buys a stardrop. It’s sweet and a little bit smoky, but he doesn’t understand how Sam and Abigail tasted their favourite things today. Sebastian tastes a strangely non-specific fruit flavour, but otherwise, the stardrop doesn’t evoke any thought in particular.

Or maybe it tastes like everything at once.

It’s not that he’s opposed to taking care of an animal, he thinks to himself on the trek home. It’s more that there isn’t really space in either cabin for a pet, and the farmland otherwise hasn’t been cultivated to be agriculture-friendly. He knows that Sam and Abigail vetoed adopting a farm cat when it was just the two of them living in the farm, and those cat-related concerns carry over to raising a chicken as well. Sebastian only really wanted the egg because it was dark and looked _super_ cool, and yes, it reminded him of Zuzu City.

Sebastian isn’t afraid of commitment. _He isn’t._ He knows that he and Sam and Abigail have different personal goals, but after almost a year of domesticity, Sebastian is dedicated to making whatever it is they have work. Sebastian just... isn’t a farmer! Sure, he likes digging for artifacts, but he doesn’t enjoy watering plants or harvesting crops or, Yoba forbid, _fishing_ . His dreams involve the big neon lights and the tiny holes in the walls of Zuzu City, and _that’s_ what he’s committed to.

But now, how is anyone supposed to live in Zuzu City with a chicken? It would be a travesty to give up the chicken. The void chicken has beady red eyes and soft baby feathers of the same darkness as the egg, and it looks super cool.

The chicken cheeps and rustles its downy feathers, trying to fall asleep inside its cup. Its wriggling dislodges Kel’s business card. Sebastian catches it before it flitters to the ground, and he’s about to toss it in the farm’s worm bin as bait fodder when he sees the company’s tagline for the second time that day.

_Fulfilling dreams for you and yours._

A figurative bulb lights up over Sebastian’s head. The chicken is a team decision, and so is Zuzu City! Of course Sebastian doesn’t know how to resolve anything, because he hasn’t consulted two-thirds of the equation yet. He slams the front door of the main farmhouse open, ready to introduce the chicken, and—

“Eugh, we eat there, you know,” says Sebastian. “I know we share germs and everything, but that’s still gross.”

Sam has Abigail hitched up on the kitchen table, and they’re both naked except for the fedoras. They both swivel their heads around, each looking like a deer in headlights, before they realise it’s just Sebastian.

Talking about the chicken can wait for another day, Sebastian supposes. Solving conundrums is a marathon, not a sprint!

“Hey, you’re back!” says Abigail, grabbing a couple of plates to cover her chest and pelvis, probably out of habit. “We’ll disinfect,” she adds, blushing.

Sam covers nothing, because he’s a little more shameless. “You, uh, want to—” Sam makes a vague hand gesture that could mean almost anything. Given the context, Sebastian assumes that he’s being invited to have sex, which, frankly, is kind of the last thing on his mind.

“Not tonight,” says Sebastian, rubbing his hand against the back of his head. They’ve gotten better at navigating their disparate needs, but these situations still happen. “I’ll leave you two to it.”

“Okay! I love you,” says Abigail, who apparently has a sense of modesty but no sense of awkwardness. Sebastian mumbles a vague _mhmsame_ noise.

“By the way, Sebs,” says Sam, pointing at the coffee table, “I got you a fedora because you got me one, and then Abs did the same thing, so I guess you have two fedoras now.”

“That’s fine,” laughs Sebastian, and carefully slides the sleeping void chicken out of the cup and into one of the hats.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I had a couple of more events I wanted to happen, but before I knew it, the egg-related shenanigans took up the entire festival day. I had a minor breakdown last night about whether or not I was making the right decision on postponing these events, because in my mind, these characters are people with (fictional) agency, and it felt really weird to hold off on a B-story for the sake of narrative focus. But, well, I only have the capacity to balance so many elements in writing at once.
> 
> Some miscellaneous thoughts: 
> 
> 1) In this universe, the witch doesn't actually curse coops. She just steals fresh eggs when she feels like eating a real omelette, and replaces them with void eggs because she feels bad. :p
> 
> 2) I really, really like Demetrius as a character, I promise. Like, he's not the perfect father (Maru has enough agency to not be the subject of a shovel talk, tyvm, and Sebastian deserves more paternal emotional investment), but he's a cool dude who generally tries hard at life and cares about both the community and the progression of scientific knowledge! Sebastian is a biased narrator.
> 
> 3) Kel is genderfluid (usually masc-presenting) and looks like his sprite with long hair! I know the game matches Kel's gender to the player's selected gender, but in a world with no player, genderfluid!Kel who switches up his presentation just makes sense to me.
> 
> Fic rec of the chapter: [The Wind that Cuts the Night](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10607253) by _thespectaclesofthor_ (NSFW). I think this fic influenced a good amount of how I interpret Elliott's mannerisms. 🤔


	8. Do You Love the Colour of Chicken?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The week following the fall festival is always a quiet affair, but the band has never really gotten the hang of being quiet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This isn't really a Halloween chapter, but I was adamant on posting for Halloween this year because I love this holiday. Happy Halloween, everyone!
> 
> Also: Here's art I made of a [deleted scene](https://dylogger.tumblr.com/post/633453951518408704/) from the fic.)

The week following the fall festival is called Bye Week as in  _ goodbye productive months of the year,  _ and it’s always a quiet affair. Everyone who sold anything spends the first day organising the remains of their inventory, and the rest of the week getting ready for winter. For some, this means pulling out the warm weather clothes and the firewood, and for others, it means taking the time to enjoy the last bits of autumn before Stardew Valley’s first snowfall.

In past years, Sam and Sebastian spent the time writing music. When Abigail graduated from her busy online program, she was also able to join them for the week of songwriting. This year, they’ve prepared for the week. Sebastian finished off his last outstanding project for the quarter. Sam finished catching all the seasonal fish they might need for the near future. Abigail wasn’t working on anything time-sensitive, so she’s ready any time to jam. Abigail and Sam have managed to automate most of the farmwork with sprinklers, and Sebastian has helped them methodically schedule the harvest to leave as much time for music as possible. They’re ready to jam, and nothing can break this week of creativity except—

“Cheep!” chirps the growing void chicken. 

Abigail groans, losing her train of thought on words that rhyme with  _ farm _ .

Sebastian sighs and gently pokes the void chicken with one finger in between its eyes. The chicken is a little bit bigger than its freshly-hatched self, but it still fits in the fedora that is currently nestled against the pillow in Sebastian’s bed.

“Cheeeeep!”

He does it again, moving his finger back and forth in a soothing pet. Abigail hunches in tighter over her notebook, pen paused over the page as she struggles to put more words onto paper.

_ “Cheep!” _ goes the chicken again.

Sebastian hesitates for a moment, and then leans in to press a kiss to the chicken’s tiny pitch-black head.

“That’s fucking adorable,” says Sam, walking into Sebastian’s one-room cabin with the mail, briefly almost tripping over Abigail’s ever-growing pile of found object music instruments.

“Yeah, maybe if it hasn’t been incessantly chirping  _ all day!”  _ says Abigail, tossing her pen in the air in frustration. Sebastian catches it before it lands on the ground and never gets found again amidst the mess of things on the floor. “It’s clearly outgrowing the fedora.”

“Yeah, maybe the chicken shouldn’t live in a hat forever,” agrees Sam. “We should maybe think about building a house for it.”

“So how about that mail?” says Sebastian, loudly.

Abigail and Sam give each other a look, but they both shrug and let the subject go.

—

_ To the Desk of Band Manager Sam, _

_ I don’t believe we’ve met, but I listened to your band’s music at the Stardew Valley Harvest Festival. I am an account manager at Zoozle, the biggest entertainment label in Zuzu City, and I’d like to sign your band. Your sound is eclectic, fresh, and full of potential, and I believe this will be a good opportunity for both you and Zoozle. If you’re interested, I invite you to schedule a visit so you can meet me and the production team. We’ll cover all the amenities for the visit, of course. _

_ (Your bandmate Sebastian is an interesting personality, but good musicians are always interesting personalities.) _

_ Looking forward to hearing from you, _

_ Kel. _

—

“Really?  _ An interesting personality?” _ Abigail wrinkles her nose, looking at the letter.

Sam shrugs. “Good musicians have interesting personalities, apparently.”

—

The trees in Pelican Town and the surrounding forest fade from their early-fall red-orange to an almost-winter mushy brown. As the leaves begin to fall off the trees, pumpkins—carved and uncarved—start to pile up on the ground. The rustle of the falling foliage and the nearly-bare trees are a constant swish that occupies the background, and the gentle sound slots in comfortably with the band’s new songs written during the post-festival Bye Week.

There’s still another week after Bye Week before winter officially starts, during which the townspeople participate in one last warm-weather bustle: Spirit’s Eve. Usually, Abigail carves way too many pumpkins, Sam tells spooky stories to a desensitised Vincent, and Sebastian throws basketfuls of harvest vegetables at the mountain. This year, in between doing these things, the band makes travel plans because it would be super dumb to turn down a headhunting invitation by a major record label! (Meanwhile, the still unnamed void chicken grows some more until it stops growing. Neither Sebastian nor any other bandmate can come up with a suitable name, so they continue to call it  _ the chicken.) _

“It’s our first Spirit’s Eve as farmers!” says Abigail, cheerfully stabbing a gourd with a dagger she found in the mines.

“Everything this year is the farm’s first everything,” says Sebastian, throwing bits of gutted pumpkin seed at the mountain.

“Well, it technically  _ isn’t _ the farm’s first Spirit’s Eve,” says Sam, flicking his eyes toward Vincent to make sure he hasn’t fallen into the lake. “Because we’ll be gone to Zuzu City and we’ll miss the party.”

“Good point,” says Sebastian. “I better throw some extra food at the mountain to make up for it, then.”

The chicken cheeps.

“Exactly,” says Sebastian. “The chicken gets me.”

The chicken cheeps again, louder, and—

“I don’t think the chicken is commenting on your food waste,” says Abigail dubiously, staring at the space that the chicken has promptly fallen asleep in.

Barely visible, underneath the suddenly unconscious chicken, is another void egg.

—

_ Ms. Abigail, _

_ Your paternity test has returned with inconclusive results. We were unfortunately unable to process your DNA samples. With this letter is enclosed detailed directions with how to take an uncontaminated DNA sample. If you would like to pursue this testing further, please send another sample as according to the instructions. _

_ Joja Genetics Clinic _ _   
_ _ A Zuzu City Health Centre _

—

Three days later, there are three more void eggs, so Sam tries desperately to give away an item that the whole town seemed to think was repulsive. (Sam, personally, has gotten used to the egg’s aura of grossness.)

—

“No way,” says Pierre when Sam tries to sell him some.

“Don’t you think about leaving those in your shipping bin,” adds Lewis, who happened to be visiting Pierre’s general store that day.

—

“Oh... er, how interesting,” says Caroline, recoiling her whole body away from the eggs without breaking from her yoga pose.

—

“Son, I don’t want to offend you, but—”

“Don’t worry about it, Dad.”

—

Evelyn’s flowers wilt in proximity to the egg, so he doesn’t even bother asking and shields his egg away from both the town centre and the Mullner house.

—

“Eggs are wonderful and I love them, but even I wouldn’t eat that,” says Alex mournfully, stopping his dumbbell curls to move to another gym bench.

“Why would you bring Alex such a travesty of egg?” wails Elliott dramatically, feigning a faint on the sauna floor.

—

“What strange manners of eggs,” says Marnie. “Maybe you can make mayonnaise.”

“Sounds unappealing,” says Jas.

Marnie also agrees to babysit the chicken while the band is away in Zuzu City.

—

“I don’t want your eggs,” says Robin, “but you should consider getting a coop for that chicken.”

“Try telling your son that,” says Sam.

Robin barks out a laugh.

—

“Dude,” says Shane, shaking his head disappointedly and petting his blue chicken while sitting in a coop-sized ocean of brown and white chickens.

“You can’t judge me!” says Sam indignantly. “You genetically modified a chicken by feeding it Joja Cola!”

“Blueberry, the pride and joy of my life and my favourite thing in the world, up to and including both alcohol and my goddaughter, lays normal white eggs,” says Shane.

Blueberry lays a normal white egg, and Sam sighs.

—

“Are you  _ insane?” _ shrieks Haley when Sam walks up to her in the town square as a last ditch effort. “Get  _ away _ from me, freak!”

—

“Get  _ out _ of my store!” yells Morris, chasing Sam out of JojaMart with a broom. Nearby, the cashier opens every window to clear out the scent of the result of Sam throwing just one egg at JojaMart.

“It smells a bit like chemical dye,” says the cashier. Aside from the face mask they’ve pulled out, they show no indication of being bothered by the smell. Some of the egg is caught on their hair, which is now stained a streak of inky black. Sam decides to not tell them about their hair.

...Actually, now that Sam thinks about it, while the egg itself may not be the correct consistency to be a chemical dye, mayonnaise  _ does _ seem to have a similar texture as hair dye.

—

“We store  _ food _ here,” says Gus, horrified, slamming the Stardrop Saloon’s kitchen door shut.

“Just egg JojaMart or something,” says Emily.

“I  _ did,” _ says Sam. “You really don’t want to try it as a fabric dye?”

Emily shakes her head  _ no. _

—

“Sebastian tells me you wanted a void egg,” says Abigail when the wizard’s tower door opens upon her knock. “I’m missing some things that the Junimos need for the community centre, and I’ll trade as many void eggs as it takes for your help in getting them.”

“I’m no travelling merchant, maybe-baby,” says Ras, spreading his arms wide. “I can, however, give you cash.”

“Done!” says Abigail, negotiating forty-two thousand gold pieces and a second cheek swab for Ras’s exclusive access to eggs for the next month.

(“I do know how to collect a cheek swab,” grumbles Ras when Abigail shows him the condescending, overly detailed instructions provided by the Joja Genetics Clinic.)

—

_ Dear Sebastian, _

_ We’ve always had a blast working with you at QLP, but your work has been particularly impressive over the past quarter. The dev team and the company value your contributions, and in an effort to continue our work with you, we would like to offer you a job: full-time, permanent, and right here in beautiful Zuzu City! A position has opened up, and you’ve proven that you would be a great fit at QLP. You’ll be doing just about the same work you are now, but you’ll work for us exclusively and you’ll have unique opportunities to grow within the team. _

_ Management knows that you are currently working remotely, and that you have personal aspirations to move to Zuzu City. Well, Zuzu City and QLP’s development team would love to have you! The job comes with a quarter-year of housing to help get you set up in the city, as well as the standard company amenities-and-benefits package. _

_ If you’re interested, or if you have any hesitations, please don’t hesitate to reach out. _

_ Cheers! _

—

“So now we have two reasons to go to Zuzu City,” says Sebastian. “I can schedule my interview on the same days as the record label tour.”

“Wait, hold on,” says Abigail. “Are... are you considering leaving the farm for a Zuzu City job?”

_ Leaving us, _ she doesn’t say.

“Leaving  _ us,” _ says Sam, because he’s not a coward. “And the chicken! You can’t adopt a chicken and leave.”

Said chicken chirps and runs around the frozen ground of the sixtieth level of the mines, where Sam is currently multitasking fishing and, it turns out, this serious conversation.

“Wait,” says Abigail. “Is this why you’ve been dragging your feet on building a coop? Because animal husbandry means commitment?”

Sebastian looks uncomfortable, and scoops up the chicken mid-run before its feet freeze in the ice. “I didn’t know Zuzu City was off the table,” he says. “The record label is in the city, and there’s money in the city, and the university is in the city. You can even egg Joja Corporation’s head office in the city. I thought we all wanted to move to Zuzu City together.”

“You know I’ve  _ been  _ all in on the farm, and fixing the community centre, and coming down to these mines every week to fight bats,” says Abigail quietly.

Sam’s fishing line goes taut, and he doesn’t even try to reel it in. “I’ll be honest, dude,” says Sam. “I think Zuzu is the coolest city in the world, but I’ve been so busy that I haven’t thought about living in Zuzu City in months. And when you said you wanted to, you know, be together, I thought that included living on the farm.”

The thing is, Sebastian does know exactly what Sam is talking about. Zuzu City is full of opportunity, away from his family, and it’s his dream, but they’ve built so much here too, in Stardew Valley. He’s been ignoring the dilemma for the past several weeks because he didn’t want to deal with thinking about letting his dream go. And, somehow, some part of him hadn’t internalised the fact that a Zuzu City move would mean leaving the farm.  _ It’s a group decision, which means I can’t unilaterally choose for all of us to stay on the farm, _ Sebastian had thought, and well—

It seems like now is the time to decide what to do.

So he says so.

They talk, and Sam fishes, and the trio comes to a tentative agreement. They’ll turn the day trip into a weekend trip and see everything that Zuzu City has to offer. If living in Zuzu City seems appealing after everything, then they’ll figure out what to do. They brainstorm options, and they come up spending half the year in the city, selling the farm, or continuing to live on the farm while commuting frequently.

—

“I already paid you,” says Rasmodius when Abigail knocks on his door again. “Seriously, you’re committing highway robbery. Forty-two thousand gold as a  _ lump sum?  _ Ruthless negotiation,  _ petite sorcière.” _

“It’s for the Junimos,” grins Abigail cheekily. “Besides, I brought you quartz.”

“Ah! Wonderful. Please come in,” says Ras. “What brings you here twice in a single week?” he says, tilting his head at Abigail inquisitively.

She takes a deep breath. “Sebastian said you gave him unsolicited advice the other day,” begins Abigail.

“Yes, as your maybe-daddy.” He grins. “Relax. I do not eat young adults. Only children, sometimes.”

“If that’s a pun on ‘baby daddy,’ you’re using it wrong,” says Abigail. “You would be  _ mom’s  _ baby daddy if the results came back positive. You’d just be my genetic father.”

“It’s not a pun,” huffs Ras. “I am a dignified Frenchman, not a heathen.”

Abigail giggles a bit despite herself, and then calms herself down to ask her question. 

“This whole dating two people thing. It’s hard,” she says. “I keep feeling like Sam and I are a unit and Sebastian is, like, an  _ addition, _ but Sam and I don’t want that. We were all best friends first and I want that  _ back, _ Ras!”

Ras is silent for a moment, and then says, “Abigail,  _ chèrie. _ Why are you asking me this, and not your parents?”

“They... don’t even know I’ve talked to you,” admits Abigail. “Mom basically point blank told me to not fuck Sebastian, and then I did. Now that I know about, well,  _ you,  _ it really sucks to deal with her being a hypocrite about it.”

“Your parents and I were all equal failures in our relationship,” says Ras wistfully. “I barely knew what I wanted. I did not know what they wanted. I did not make an effort to share what I knew, or to find out what they wanted, and the undefined boundaries all fell apart. Do you know what I told your partner, Abigail?”

Abigail shakes her head  _ no. _

“I told him, not in such specific words, to protect his heart, because being the unicorn to a couple is a heartbreaking thing if one does not know himself or his partners.”

_ Unicorn.  _ Abigail has heard that word before, back when Sam was exclusively dating Sebastian and she was lying about her age on dating apps.  _ I won’t be your unicorn, _ people would say disparagingly in reference to couples looking for a casual third.

“The three of us had an argument earlier,” she says quietly. “Sam and I have been solid a long time, and we were on the same page, and Sebastian was not. I don’t...” she takes a stuttering breath. “I don’t want Sebastian to feel like he’s less important. I don’t want him to feel like a unicorn.” She peers up at Rasmodius. “How do we do that?”

—

_ Hi Abby! This is Maru. I work at the Joja Genetics Clinic; did you know that? _

_ The DNA samples you provided were actually fine, but they confused the machines for some reason so I had to manually profile the samples. The results were a bit strange, and I think you should consider coming into the clinic so we can look at them together. Dad also has the equipment we’d need for this consultation, but I figured you contacted a genetics clinic instead of doing things locally for a reason. Next time you’re in Zuzu City, let me know and we’ll set up an appointment. (I work Mondays!) _

—

Sam opens his mouth.

“We’re not naming the chicken Cock,” says Sebastian.

Sam shuts his mouth.

“You can guess what he tried to name the stray cat that Marnie tried to give us,” says Abigail.

“Also, it’s a girl chicken,” says Sebastian.

“Gender is a human construct,” mutters Sam.

“You kids are crazy,” says Pam, freshly back from rehab and driving the band to Zuzu City on the newly restored bus service.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M BAAAAAACK!
> 
> You may or may not have noticed that Krobus is no longer in the tags of this fic, and that was because I decided to write him out of the fic. My original thought was that Krobus would become Sebastian's partner/roommate and Sam and Abigail's metamour, but I couldn't make it fit. This sucks for me because Krobus is straight up my favourite Stardew character, but trying to introduce him was a really big headache, so I just. Didn't.
> 
> Sebastian and Krobus are still going to bond over [all things void](https://dylogger.tumblr.com/post/633453951518408704/) off-screen eventually. :D
> 
> Next chapter: the band goes to Zuzu City!


	9. Zuzu City

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Does mayhem follow the band, or does the band follow mayhem?
> 
> (Sam, Sebastian, and Abigail go to Zuzu City.)

Pam drops Abigail, Sam, and Sebastian at the big public bus stop in Zuzu City on Friday, promising to pick them up on Sunday night. They unload Sebastian’s motorcycle off the back of the Calico Desert bus and onto the driveway of their tiny vacation rental room, located in a row of quaint, colourful townhouses. It’s Spirit’s Eve, and Abigail is just about to drag the men to one of Zuzu City’s famous nightclubs when the doorbell rings.

“Trick-or-treat!” yells three small children, all probably somewhere in the elementary school range. A self-conscious teenager offers them a shrug when the yell gets really loud.

“They’re just excited,” says the teenager accompanying them. She doesn’t look very put out by it, despite having a sheepish smile. “Not going to lie, getting free candy every year is pretty dope.”

“I—this is a vacation rental apartment,” says Abigail helplessly, not knowing how to respond to this tradition they absolutely don’t have in Pelican Town on account of there only being two children and, like, six homes. In the background, Sebastian huffs out a laugh as he applies body paint to turn his face into a skull.

Sam comes over with makeup covering half his face and a sleeveless skeleton shirt. “Oh, hey, I’ve read about this tradition!” he says. He rummages through a backpack, pulling a few stray minerals and hands one to each child and the teenager.

“You brought rocks on your vacation?” says one of the children, wide-eyed. “Mom never lets me take my rock collection anywhere!”

“Want to see _my_ rock collection?” says Abigail.

Abigail spends the next five minutes showing the trick-or-treaters her personal bag of snack rocks, and then the next two hours showing every subsequent trick-or-treater her bag of rocks, gifting quartz to everyone who shows an interest.

Eventually, the trick-or-treaters peter out. The band does make it to the club Abigail wanted to go to in the wee hours of the morning, which is apparently hosting Zuzu city’s must-visit adult Spirit’s Eve event: a neon costume party.

“Wow, this is way different from Pelican Town’s maze!” says Abigail, eyes open in wonder as she takes in the purple-and-green-lit nightclub. She’s donned one of the fedoras they bought at the harvest festival, pairing it with a black catsuit with white bones and a tulle skirt.

“That’s because nobody else in Pelican Town has a monster kink,” says Sebastian. His skeleton body makeup from earlier is complete with not only a bold graphic skull on his face, but striking painted glow-in-the-dark ribs climbing down his torso.

“And there’s all of thirty people in Pelican Town, and—hey, is that a sexy skeleton by the bar?” says Sam, immediately interrupting his own followup.

Abigail’s head swivels around, looking for the sexy skeleton in question before realising that _they_ are at the bar. She huffs out a laugh. Sam holds up his hand and Sebastian rolls his eyes and hits it for a high-five.

“Drinks!” cheers Abigail.

Sam, Sebastian, and Abigail party through the night. At one point, an inebriated Sebastian drags Sam to the DJ booth and tries to get the DJ to play their music, and it almost works until they realise that none of them are carrying any samples. They drink, and they admire the late night light show, and they don’t really attract any attention from the locals but they have a good time dancing with each other.

“That was great!” yells Abigail at the moon as they stumble back to their vacation rental.

“Abs, give me your jacket!” yells Sebastian, shivering in the cold night. “I’m shirtless and cold!”

“You don’t have to yell!” yells Sam. “We’re not in the club anymore!”

“Oh, right,” says Sebastian at a more moderate volume, slipping on Abigail’s jacket when she hands it to him. “What a great Spirit’s Eve! We had trick-or-treaters _and_ Zuzu City clubbing!”

—

 _“Fuck,”_ groans Sebastian the next morning. “This is _awful.”_

It’s uncharacteristically warm for the end of Autumn—maybe the last warm day of the year. Sebastian can feel the sun heating his face and the shared bed through the rental apartment’s window. He opens one eye, and his headache goes from a light throb to a dangerous pound as the late morning sunlight blares in his face. He immediately slams his one open eye shut again.

“Lightweight,” laughs Sam.

“Not a lightweight,” sniffles Abigail, slamming a pillow over her head. “Zuzu City alcohol is just different. Worse.”

Abigail’s head is tucked under the pillow, so Sam a cup of coffee in Sebastian’s face. The scent of coffee fills the room, and Sebastian blinks his eyes open and perks up.

“Hold up; that’s a branded paper cup. When did you have time to buy coffee?” Sebastian takes a sip. “Awful coffee at that.”

“JojaBrew Coffee,” says Sam. “But it’s the _only_ coffee I could find, and caffeine is caffeine. Now drink up. We have shit to do.”

“Hell no,” murmurs Abigail, rolling over and passing out again.

—

Abigail turns out to be not just hungover, but also legitimately sick, so she doesn’t make it out of bed. After going on a quick drugstore run for the mess of purple hiding under their bed, Sam helps a no-longer-hungover Sebastian navigate Zuzu City’s streets to the Zoozle studio. The building is located in the middle of a block-wide traffic jam, even though the commute is in the middle of the day. Sebastian is _this close_ to choosing to weave in and out of traffic between the lanes of cars, but, well, that’s illegal.

“No it’s not,” says Sam, after they’ve parked and are standing in Zoozle’s spacious reception.

“Yes it is,” says Sebastian. “That’s incredibly unsafe.”

“Sure,” agrees Sam, “but it’s _legal._ Here, anyway. Didn’t they teach you that in driving school?”

Sebastian winces, and his neck flushes red at the collar of his jacket.

“No way,” says Sam.

Sebastian nods once, almost imperceptibly.

 _“No way,”_ says Sam again.

“Don’t you _dare_ tell Lewis,” says Sebastian, adjusting his stance so he’s not in a full-body grimace and glaring up at Sam. “He would build a flagpole in the town square and then hang me up by _his own_ purple boxers.”

“Not tell Mayor Lewis that you’re legally not allowed to drive the roads he doesn’t want you driving on?” says Sam innocently. “Of course not.”

“Anti-authoritarian activity!” says Kel brightly, causing both men to yelp. “What a delight to have in this studio. Crime is so avant-garde, especially from village people!” Today, his hair is twisted into a French bun, and there’s a set of electronic keycards swinging in his fingerless-gloved hands.

“You know what,” says Sebastian, “I think I _will_ get my motorcycle license.”

—

The first thing Kel does after insulting their rural upbringing is offer Sam and Sebastian coffee from the break room with way too many toppings. Sebastian adds the usual sugar to his, and Sam adds _all_ the toppings, even the ones that Sebastian _knows_ he’s never heard of.

“A man after my own heart,” swoons Kel, adding an ungodly amount of whipped cream to his own latte.

 _Twat,_ mouths Sebastian to Sam while Kel’s back is turned.

Next, Kel takes them on a tour of the studio. Neither Sebastian nor Sam can claim expertise at interior design, but they can still acquiesce that whoever put these interiors together had a fantastic eye for furniture. The recording spaces are well-insulated, the acoustics ring beautifully, and the audio engineer blows Sebastian’s mind away with her skills. There are a few other recording artists around even though it’s a Saturday, because art doesn’t sleep or something like that. But that’s okay; neither does farmwork.

The biggest hiccup is that record label’s major corporate shareholder is Joja Corporation, but Kel assures them that the company is hands-off: after all, the best money is made by letting creative people have their own voice.

Well, he says it more like this: “Now, it might be hard for you to write anti-Joja songs once the label is funding your music, but rest assured, Joja Corporation does not give two shits what music you put out as long as it makes money.”

“Yeah, sounds accurate,” says Sam.

And, well, Kel isn’t even _that_ rude today. He’s a good businessperson who apparently knows to turn down the obnoxiousness for clients. “I may have been wrong about small towns!” he says. “You lot might be culturally backwards, but your band is there and you guys _slap._ That Elliott man writes _titillating_ poetry, and Leah clearly sees something there, even though she’d have a much better life up—”

...Never mind. Sebastian sticks out his foot and trips Sam, who spills the remainder of his coffee with a thousand toppings on Kel’s red cargo jumpsuit.

“My bad,” says Sebastian dryly.

Kel pointedly coughs, and Sam raises an eyebrow at Sebastian.

Everything sounds good and above board, except for Sam’s natural hesitation to be a source of profit for Joja Corporation. So Kel pushes a contract towards them and tells them to look it over with Abigail. Sam and Sebastian both nod and skim the contract.

“Wait, _how_ much money?” says Sebastian halfway down the contract.

(Sebastian is tempted to do a coffee spit take all over Kel’s already-ruined jumpsuit, but he supposes it isn’t Kel’s fault that the take-home cuts are _so fucking low.)_

—

The two of them walk across the street to a local rundown diner for a late lunch. The clerk introduces herself as the diner owner, and as she takes their order _and_ cooks the food _and_ serves them, Sebastian privately thinks that she looks harried and stressed.

And then he says so, because he’s still a little bit hungover and his brain-to-mouth filter isn’t fully functional yet.

“Ah, I’m sorry!” she says. “Please don’t give us a bad review. Joja is this close to this close to buying out the diner, and I can’t afford to lose business!”

“Oh, uh—yeah, no I get it,” says Sebastian, not expecting the woman’s frenetic energy. “No offence; sorry.”

Sam squeezes Sebastian’s shoulder, and the diner owner scurries away with her head down and her shoulders tight.

—

 _“Motherfucker!”_ yells Sebastian upon walking back to the Zoozle Studios parking lot and seeing that his bike is missing not only the helmets, but somehow, also the seats and the wheels.

Sam bursts out laughing. “And you can’t even report the theft because _you’ve been driving this thing illegally!”_

—

“—I mean, with the income from the fall harvest, we can definitely afford to bankroll some quality music production,” says Sebastian. “I guess this might be what market value is for musicians, but this is _really_ an insulting salary.”

“Really?” says Sam.

“Sebastian goes through the effort of making revenue spreadsheets and you don’t even look at them,” says Abigail, head in Sam’s lap and feet propped up on the bed’s headboard. She looks a lot less worn than she did in the morning, like a person who’s only dealing with a cold instead of a cold _and_ a hangover.

“I trust Sebastian,” shrugs Sam, taking the contract from Abigail to reread it..

Sebastian flushes a little at that. “Anyway,” he says, “the main reason we’d want to sign with Kel is for the gigs and the networking. We _could_ do it remotely, but if we sign specifically for the clout, then living here would give us a boost.”

“Clout is nice,” says Abigail, sitting up to lean back on her elbows and look at Sam. “It’s pretty cool that we were even noticed by a big record company.”

“Gigs are nice too,” says Sebastian, also looking at Sam.

“But we’ve all had enough of being underpaid to support someone else’s profit for a lifetime,” says Sam. “Or at least I have.”

“But you love performing,” says Sebastian carefully.

Sam puts his hand in his chin, and darts his eyes up to the ceiling. “I don’t know if I do,” he says. “I like being a musician, and I like having a voice, and the idea of inspiring change is pretty awesome. Performing is just useful, and it’s not like we can’t find our own connections a bit more slowly.”

“I’d sign if that ends up being the group consensus,” says Abigail. “But I don’t want to give up farming.”

“Honestly, being underpaid really reveals how much the label values art,” says Sebastian.

The three band members look at each other.

“Yeah, fuck it,” says Sebastian. “Kel is _insufferable.”_

—

They split up that night. Sam and Abigail dress in football merch to go watch a football game. Sebastian has a jersey too in case he couldn’t figure out what to do with his Saturday night, but he really couldn’t care less about football, and, well, it’s just his luck that inspiration strikes right as Abigail gets a text about her Joja Genetics Clinic appointment tomorrow.

It’s also just his luck that his motorcycle is unusable and currently being towed back to Pelican Town for an exorbitant fee, so he has to use Zuzu City’s public transit system.

It smells like nothing Sebastian can compare to. Like, he could _maybe_ compare it to Willy’s shack on a sunny day, but the bus doesn’t smell as bad as warm raw fish. No; it’s more subtle than that; the smell is less of an assault on Sebastian’s senses than it is an unnerving discomfort that permeates his perception.

Sebastian thought that Pelican Town was relatively colourful for a small town, and maybe it is, but it’s _nothing_ compared to this single Zuzu City Transit bus. The seats are half-full with people who look like they each belong in a separate genre of movie. Beside Sebastian is a middle-aged, leather-clad man beside him listening to music through his headphones loudly enough to be audible. In front of him is a kid who’s too young to be riding the bus by himself sloppily eating a sandwich. Across the aisle is a businesswoman sleeping on two seats, and at the back of the bus, there’s someone dressed like a cowgirl. Though, Sebastian probably isn’t in a good place to judge with the suspicious brown paper bag he’s carrying.

Sebastian also notices that he can’t remember the last time he saw this many people of colour in one place.

He’s just starting to get used to the throbbing headache the smell is causing when the driver announces his stop. Sebastian opens his analogue map to make sure the street is correct, and then slips through the seats to get off the bus. From there, he lets the muscle memory of his feet navigate him through a suburb of semi-detached homes until he reaches a familiar house. The house lights are off but the street lamps are on, illuminating the now-ratty tire swing that he once played on as a kid.

There’s a single void egg in Sebastian’s paper bag; the chicken is technically his so he still gets first dibs on all the eggs. He pulls it out and looks at it, and he thinks about the years of missed child support payments that his mother never chased. He thinks about the letters he sent that never received any replies, and the years of birthdays with just his mother and Demetrius, always interrupted by then-baby Maru’s demands for attention. He swallows against the bitter memories of being literally one of two children in a small town.

Still, the other kid was Abigail, who turned out to be pretty great. Sebastian would be lying if he said Pelican Town was, especially after Maru got older and Sam and Penny came to town, followed by Alex and Haley. (The last two were insufferable, but every nerd needs a jock foil or two.) And, well, Demetrius might suck for a list of reasons as long as Sebastian’s dick, but he _did_ successfully raise Maru without bailing.

This train of thought is quickly leaving grudge territory, so Sebastian thinks back to how it might have been if he’d lived here instead of in Pelican Town. He could have gone to elementary school instead of being home-schooled, and he could have gone to high school without being shuttled on a daily hour-long commute. He could have gone to university in person instead of settling for an online degree. He could have built a professional network and found a career that allowed him to nurture his passion for storytelling.

...But then he wouldn’t have dated Abigail, and then Sam, and then watched _them_ covetously on the sidelines, just to end up living on a farm with the both of them, would he?

Stepping closer toward the house, Sebastian startles in surprise as the exterior house lights blink on. What was once a classically homey structure has become significantly more run down through the past two decades. Paint peels off the front door, and there are a half-dozen homeowners’ association notices taped on the mailbox, each with text bigger and redder than the last. There are signs of happiness too: a recycling bin half-filled with empty bottles, footprints of recent trick-or-treaters running through the unkempt lawn, and Winter’s Feast lights that have been set up early but not turned on.

Sebastian _could_ take a page out of Sam’s book and egg the house, like he planned to. But try as he might, the feeling of resentment he keeps trying to summon dance out of his reach. The grudge is a dim flicker at the bottom of his heart and he thinks it always will be, but there’s so much more to Sebastian’s experiences than bitterness. All this aside, it wouldn’t be _undeserved_ if Sebastian egged the house.

But, well, Abigail owes Rasmodius a _lot_ of void eggs, and it would be helpful to add an egg toward paying off her debt. And it’s not good to be in debt while you’re building toward a future.

—

“We watched two lesbian grandmas make out on the jumbotron for _ten minutes._ It was too much PDA, even for me, but you know what? Good for them,” says Abigail.

“Nice,” says Sebastian. “I didn’t egg my dad’s house.”

“Coward,” says Sam.

—

“So what’s the verdict?” says Sam the next morning. Sebastian and Sam are in the reception of the Joja Genetics Clinic. Sam is admiring the Spirit’s Eve decor that hasn’t been taken down yet when Maru and Abigail step out from an interior room to greet them. Sebastian, too, snaps his head up from the _Alternative Families 101_ pamphlet he picked up.

“Dad’s my dad!” beams Abigail, picking up Sam and twirling him around.

“Huh,” says Sam once she puts him down. “I thought we would have to do more moral support here.”

Sebastian shrugs. Rasmodius would be happy that he doesn’t owe two decades of child support backpay.

“Also, I’m pregnant,” says Abigail.

“You’re _what?”_ yells Sam.

—

“The bloodwork doesn’t lie,” says Maru, after a kerfluffle of _how did this happen?_ and _what the FUCK_ and _you’re sexually active adults who shouldn’t ask these questions!_ and _you’re not allowed to judge us as a medical professional!_ and _I’M JUDGING YOU AS YOUR SISTER SEBASTIAN_ and _wait we ARE sexually educated! those questions are rhetorical!_

“Abigail is about two weeks along,” continues Maru. “She has second generation magic genes, but from the wizard’s weird magic drugs, not paternally. You know, like how drinking while you’re pregnant messes with the baby.”

“We tested my blood against hers,” says Abigail cheerfully. “Same magic compound. The bloodwork machine also tests for pregnancy, which is how we found out.”

Sam and Sebastian look at each other warily.

Abigail sighs. “No, I don’t know which one of you is the father. The timing could line up for either.” Sebastian has only had sex with Abigail a small handful of times since summer, but he does some quick math in his head and the dates check out. “But it doesn’t matter,” she continues. “I’m not keeping it.”

“...Hm,” says Sebastian, and then backtracks when both Abigail and Maru start glaring at him. “Hey, no! I’m just saying that you two said you wouldn’t have a kid without a conversation. So... maybe we should have that conversation.”

Maru doesn’t let up her angry stare until she sees Abigail relent, and then she sighs and pulls open a magazine drawer. “You’ll probably want these, then,” she says, handing him copies of _Alternative Families 102_ through _105._

—

They leave Joja Genetics Clinic with a prescription for a medical abortion and a handful of resources and settle in a nearby restaurant for a long conversation, but the conversation isn’t long.

It begins with Abigail: “I’m never giving birth.”

“What about kids? Ever?” says Sam. He makes sure to look at both Abigail and Sebastian. “You know I’ve _always_ wanted to be a dad. I love the shit out of my brother.”

“I could raise a kid,” says Sebastian. He thinks for a moment. “But I’m aromantic, and we’re poly, and we haven’t fully figured out what that means yet. I don’t think we’re stable enough for kids.”

“So not now, but maybe when we’re, like thirty,” agrees Abigail. “But I’m good with kids as long as I don’t have to give birth. The idea alone makes me want to miscarry.”

They all shudder.

“Nice!” cheers Sam. “We’ll try to adopt in a few years, when our lives settle into something more stable.” They cheer, and they all get dessert to celebrate.

“Stardew Valley,” says Sebastian suddenly, as they’re about to split up for the afternoon. “Let’s raise the kid in Stardew Valley. Zuzu City isn’t that great.”

Sam and Abigail both nod, and Abigail leans over to kiss his cheek while Sam grabs one of Sebastian’s hands and squeezes it.

—

It dawns on Sebastian, as he stares out the window, that winter here is ugly as all hell. In Stardew Valley, snow usually blankets the ground in a blinding sheet of white on the first day of winter. In Zuzu City, the snow is grey, and not just from boot prints and car tracks on the ground. No, the clouds themselves are grey and snow plummets from the sky; heavy with dust and falling faster than regular snowflakes. It’s only early afternoon, but it looks almost dark already through the snow curtain. He wasn’t paying attention to the weather earlier, but the thought that Sebastian can barely see the horizon through QLC’s office windows flies through his head.

When he meets his would-be supervisor, he’s given some bullshit explanation of why some people at a tech company are working on a Sunday. ( _“Flex hours,”_ she says amicably, but Sebastian’s been freelancing with this company for a while. He knows that flex hours means _be on call.)_ He tours the office space (cozy furniture, white walls, and cubicles), meets some people who recognise him from their calls (nice, as far as he can tell), and has a pleasant casual interview with the would-be supervisor.

“I believe I’ve covered everything I wanted to chat about with you,” she says, and Sebastian blinks, realising he’s missed the last five minutes of the conversation while staring out the window. “Do you have any questions for me before I let you go?”

He’s already asked all the perfunctory questions during their conversation, such as why there was a job opening, and work challenges, and the company benefits. He _could_ ask about Zuzu City’s culture, or work-life balance at QLC, but Sebastian’s heart isn’t in it. Five years ago, he spent hours every day with his head in his laptop, reading about job hunting processes and trying to figure out how to find work in Zuzu City. Today, he can’t find it in himself to summon the yearning he once felt.

“No,” Sebastian says finally, even though he knows that’s the wrong answer from said interview guides.

“Hm,” says his interviewer. “Well, how did you like the city? You’ve always wanted to live here, right?”

Sebastian musters a small smile. The woman had already asked that earlier when they were making small talk, and Sebastian had answered in a small talk fashion. This time, he answers candidly.

“Honestly, I think my priorities have changed in the last year, and I just didn’t realise it.” He looks into the interviewer’s eyebrows like the interview guides taught him. Five years ago, he would have jumped at the position. “Zuzu City is a beautiful city and I’m grateful for the invitation,” says Sebastian, “but I hope you’ll keep me on as a regular remote freelancer.”

Now, he has his sights set on the future.

—

“...The city _is_ beautiful though,” says Sebastian later that week, absentmindedly staring at hte lights of Zuzu City. He, Sam, and Abigail are at Sebastian’s favourite spot on the mountain for an evening picnic. The stars are pretty but none of them know anything about stars, so they spend the sunset gazing at the shimmering lights of Zuzu City. The lights get brighter as the blanket of night falls around them, and Sam and Abigail hum their agreement that yes, Zuzu City is wonderful and exhilarating and full of opportunity.

But, well, it’s no life in Stardew Valley.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> We're on our way to a happy ending!
> 
> 1) My dumb ass: "motorcycles are bikes and therefore they can be loaded on the bike racks on public transit buses." And then it was too late to write a tow truck into the fic, so I guess they just loaded Sebastian's bike onto Pam's bus. (Which does work when there are only three passengers!
> 
> 2) The joke is that Sebastian thinks his list of grievances against Demetrius is long, but it's actually not that long. 8=D
> 
> 3) Abigail is happy about the paternity test results, but I swear that doesn't mean it's the end of the arc. I wouldn't put effort into setting up the arc just to write an inconsiderate conclusion ~~like the finale of Supernatural.~~

**Author's Note:**

>  _Bandfarmhaus_ is a WIP, and I am not an extremely speedy writer. However, BFH operates more like a chill anthology of chronological one-shots, rather than a continuous novel. So, while I can't promise semiweekly updates, I _can_ promise a reasonable sense of completeness at the end of each chapter.
> 
> The endnotes of each chapter will come with a Stardew Valley fic rec, because I've been really enjoying reading for this fandom. Conversely, if you have any fics that you'd like to rec me, feel free to drop me a line in the comments or in my DMs, because I love reading this shit, yo.
> 
> [Tumblr](https://dylogger.tumblr.com/)


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